The victory in the price war was definitive, but Alex knew the truce was temporary. The Merchant Guilds might be defeated on the pricing front, but their true strength lay in their information monopoly. They controlled regional trade routes, market prices, and creditor gossip through an ancient, inefficient network of riders and biased messengers.
"They're faster than us, My Lord," Hemlock whined, dusting a stack of silver coins. "Their riders can cover fifty miles a day."
"They're not faster than us, Hemlock. They are using an outdated protocol," Alex corrected, tapping his charcoal stick against a map.
"Their protocol is slow, expensive, and subject to corruption. We need a system that minimizes latency and eliminates human error."
Alex realized the key was a new communication channel. He couldn't invent the telegraph yet—that required refined copper wire and advanced batteries. But he could invent the fastest pre-electric communication system in history: the semaphore line.
He called Garth and his now-certified apprentice, Marcus, into the study.
"Garth, I need you to build five towers. Tall, sturdy, visible from ten miles away," Alex instructed. "And Marcus, I need you to build a system of large, movable wooden arms for the top of each tower, controlled by ropes and cranks. They must be precisely counterbalanced and painted black for contrast."
The concept was simple: a chain of towers, each one relaying a visual signal to the next using a pre-determined codebook.
"But what do the arms say, My Lord?" Marcus asked, intrigued by the mechanical challenge.
"They say whatever we need them to say, efficiently," Alex said, already scribbling.
***
Alex spent two days condensing the essentials of commerce and logistics into a tight, logical, and compact cipher.
* Code 1-99: Basic Market Data (e.g., Code 12 = Barley Price; Code 45 = Iron Demand).
* Code 100-199: Logistics (e.g., Code 101 = Cart broken on south road; Code 150 = Urgent materials required).
* Code 200-299: Political/Security (e.g., Code 210 = Duke's envoy sighted; Code 250 = Bandit activity confirmed).
The codebook was a masterpiece of information density. A complex price fluctuation that would take a Guild rider three days to deliver could now be transmitted across the Arren lands in minutes.
The towers were erected on the highest points of the Arren and Tarsus lands (Baron Tarsus, having enjoyed the free road, happily agreed to rent the land for "a decorative tower that scares bandits").
***
The semaphore line proved to be an instantaneous, overwhelming advantage.
When the Merchant Guilds, in a desperate attempt to retaliate, tried to artificially crash the price of raw charcoal—a key input for the blast furnace—Alex knew about it immediately. A foreman outside Silverstream saw the sudden price change and flashed Code 13 (20% charcoal price drop) up the line.
Within half an hour, Alex knew the information, confirmed the market manipulation, and countered: he sent riders to every farmer outside the Silverstream Guild's territory, offering a slight premium on the old charcoal price. He bought up the entire regional supply before the Guilds' own messenger pigeons could even leave the city.
The Guilds, having shorted the market, were forced to buy back charcoal at their own crashed price to fill their previous contracts, losing a fortune. Alex, sitting on a massive, cheaply acquired fuel surplus, simply updated his ledger.
"Their system relies on asymmetrical information and slow dissemination," Alex told Hemlock, who was staring slack-jawed at the latest sales figures.
"Our system relies on real-time data and market agility. We don't just know the price; we know it first. That is power."
The semaphore line became the Arren Fief's greatest asset. It gave them a financial and security advantage that no one else in the kingdom understood. Farmers used it to report weather changes; foremen used it to track inventory; and Alex used it to monitor the political temperature of Baron Tarsus's court.
Next priority: The scope of the steelworks is growing too large for a single manor's legal structure. We need to protect the assets and minimize personal liability. It's time to invent the concept of the corporation.