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Young Merchant is dealing with a "market world" that has a time-lag that we're not used to. Smartly operating in it can net a lot of profits, which is pretty much what he's up to.
I haven't read the novels, but I think how he read the situation is pretty straight forward: Potatoes (so a new, major food stuff in the southern countries) is about to go off the market, which is going to drive Wheat prices up. Further, there is going to be War. This is going to put whoever controls the Wheat as the major player going forward.
So, he's taken this information and created a Futures Market. He's locked up a huge portion of next year's crop, while at the same time buying up a large enough supply of the Open Market wheat to drive prices up a lot. (It actually doesn't take buying too much higher, especially in this time period to create a minor "panic" in pricing) When everyone sees a major player in the Alliance start buying a lot of Wheat, the nobles will start hunkering down, to avoid getting hit latter. (This is still a heavily Feudal system, so a lot of Nobles need to buy Wheat)
What by a fairly small amount of work, just mostly being ahead of the market, has started off a nasty hording/deflationary spiral in Wheat prices. As Wheat goes up because everyone starts hording, moving an army becomes too expensive for the Kings/Nobles to do without relying on the Alliance for money. So, it's a chance to pretty much "end" the War before it goes anywhere. Oh, and Young Merchant is going to make a play to take over the Council and make a HUGE profit next year on Wheat. (Plus Hero has tried to setup him up with the Dragon Princess, there were some flags there... and some "umm... do I want to hit that?" anti-flags as well)
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