As for Ding Yun, she wasn't actually unable to guess the current emperor's thoughts. She was even very clear that if she were to be assassinated by salt merchants, the one above would certainly not protect her. After all, he couldn't even protect court officials, let alone a mere merchant like her.
The main reason she was willing to help and interfere in the salt industry.
It was actually because she saw how bitter the common people were.
Since the grain merchants already hated her to the bone, what was one more salt merchant? As the saying goes, many fleas don't bite, and many debts don't worry.
Besides, other aspects aside.
At least when it came to self-preservation, she had her means.
If she encountered assassination or the like.
The farm was enough to guarantee her life was in no danger.
As for poisoning, she was now traveling all over the country without any pattern. She didn't buy finished food, just browsed around. Apart from meat, all other food she ate was produce grown and sold from her farm.
Traveling around the country so irregularly.
It would be truly difficult to poison her.
Therefore, in terms of safety, there were basically no major problems. However, even so, after Ding Yun had been selling official salt in large quantities for half a month, without any adulteration and with prices only slightly higher than the purchased price, she still encountered many dangers.
It had to be said that salt merchants were truly more savage than grain merchants.
Their courage far surpassed that of grain merchants.
In broad daylight, under the clear sky, the salt merchants dared to send thugs and ruffians to smash and loot Ding Yun's grain shop, and at night, they sent people to set her grain shop on fire. At the same time, they dispatched personnel to rob her grain and salt transport teams.
They were truly outrageously arrogant to the extreme.
In addition, she herself had encountered no less than ten assassination attempts. Although she could dodge them each time with her keen senses or survive thanks to the farm, there were a few occasions that were indeed incredibly close.
This feeling of needing to constantly guard against danger.
It was not a pleasant experience.
Perhaps this was the difference between an industry with only 30-50% profit and an industry with profits far exceeding 300-500%. The former was the grain merchants, the latter, the salt merchants.
Such high profits naturally made them dare to trample on the law.
Trample on human lives, and even trample on imperial authority.
However, their actions truly enraged Ding Yun. Originally, Ding Yun had no intention of driving them to their deaths. She merely wanted to use the salt she obtained through her salt permits to help the common people slightly. If possible, she might even be able to force other salt merchants to lower the price of their official salt and improve its quality, which would have been a good outcome.
But who would have thought that those salt merchants were simply insatiably greedy? With over 500% profit, they were unwilling to earn a mere 100-200% profit. For anyone who disrupted their profitable trade practices, they would try to eliminate them.
However, upon further reflection, it was understandable.
They had already gotten rid of four or five imperial salt censors.
Local officials who opposed them and attempted to levy salt taxes had died in unknown numbers. Those remaining either colluded with them or at least dared not manage them.
Ding Yun, a grain merchant without any backing, wanted to interfere and disrupt.
Even if she was crowned Imperial Merchant, so what?
They could still kill her whenever they pleased.
They weren't afraid at all.
With this realization, Ding Yun naturally no longer bothered to confront them head-on in the business arena. Since they didn't play by the rules, she shouldn't be blamed for not playing by them either.
Thus, Ding Yun quickly used her farm to conceal her tracks and disguised herself as a man.
And then she embarked on her journey as a great thief.
Her farm was magical, not in the sense that she had to exit from the same place she entered.
After entering the farm, she could appear at will within a radius of three to five *li* (a Chinese unit of distance) centered on the farm, in all directions. Three *li* allowed for precise positioning, while at five *li*, there might be a slight error of a few centimeters in positioning. This was mainly because after Ding Yun entered this world, her mental power was greatly suppressed, and she could only sense this far within the farm.
But even so, that was enough.
This characteristic of the farm was sufficient for her to enter any salt merchant's warehouse or private vault from within three to five *li* of their location via the farm. As long as Ding Yun confirmed that there was no one in their warehouse or private vault, she could easily clear out everything within.
Although the space in the farm's warehouse was limited, it was because the farm warehouse had a preservation function, allowing items to remain fresh for thousands or tens of thousands of years. However, there were still plenty of uncultivated areas around the farm's land where she could store items without any problem.
Thus, after Ding Yun mastered these characteristics.
She quickly began her path as a great thief.
Consequently, the salt merchants in Huaiyang and even the entire Jiangnan region suffered. Because they would often wake up one morning to find that their warehouses, which stored millions of catties, or even tens of millions of catties of salt, were empty. Or they would discover that their private vaults, which contained their entire family fortune, were empty. Even worse, their secret stashes were also empty.
The most crucial point was that many salt merchants disliked silver notes. They themselves didn't trust silver notes. Apart from occasional transactions where silver notes were used, their private vaults mostly stored gold and silver.
Gold and silver could be easily melted down, making it impossible to trace their origin. This was much more convenient than silver notes and harder to track, which made it even easier for Ding Yun.
However, before Ding Yun had carried out many heists.
Those salt merchants had become vigilant.
They not only dispatched large numbers of guards to protect their warehouses and private vaults, but they also divided them into several parts, so that if they were still unable to prevent a complete sweep, the loss would be less if it were divided into multiple parts.
Of course, in addition to this, they also cooperated with the salt merchants whose family fortunes were almost completely looted by Qiao Mu (likely referring to Ding Yun's alias) to urge the local government to quickly investigate the case. They not only demanded that the great thief behind the scenes be identified within a time limit but also requested that people be dispatched to protect their warehouses and private vaults.
In short, they were all in a panic.
Their focus was entirely on protecting themselves.
Temporarily, they had no energy to deal with Ding Yun.
However, Ding Yun was not someone who would easily give up. Since she had decided to deal with all the salt merchants, she would not back down because of this. Therefore, even though they had increased their defenses as much as possible, it was still impossible to change the outcome, the result of everything in the warehouses and private vaults being lost.
Her actions.
Almost drove those salt merchants mad.
Even the patrons of those salt merchants were extremely anxious because of this, but they were also helpless. At most, they could only pressure those investigating the case more.
Demanding that they solve the case within a time limit and so on.