Central Italy, the Grand Ducal Palace of Tuscany.
Grand Duke Leopold II looked in surprise at the Austrian officials pledging their allegiance to him.
"Mr. Mauna, you can't be serious, can you? Tuscany is merely a small state under Austrian rule. Tuscany owes allegiance to Austria too."
Mauna was an Austrian commissioner who had arrived in Tuscany two years earlier. Grand Duke Leopold II had little ambition, but he was kind and beloved by the people. He was also receptive to advice and quick to take good counsel.
For someone like Mauna, who had languished without recognition in the Austrian bureaucracy, Leopold was the best kind of boss.
Of course, rulers like him usually kept a lax watch over their subordinates, and corruption ran rampant. That was one major reason Tuscany's economy had not improved. The commissioners sent from Austria could root out these long-standing ills.
In just two years, Tuscany had not only completed railways to Modena and Lucca, but had also expanded its small steelworks into the largest steelworks in Central Italy.
Central Italy lacked coal and iron, but it was not entirely without them.
By abolishing the exorbitant taxes and levies officials and nobles had collected on the sly, Tuscany had breathed new life into the Port of Livorno.
Tuscany possessed one of the largest mercury mines in Italy, if not the world. In the Austrian officials' crackdown, they recovered 15 million florins in stolen funds, and over the next two years, output tripled.
Tuscany's fiscal revenue surged from less than 3 million florins in 1834 to 10 million.
With its newfound wealth, Tuscany expanded its army from 2,000 to 10,000 men and built its own factories. Its weapons not only met domestic needs but could also be sold to other countries.
Leopold II of Tuscany was