is it really that hard to get money on silkroad? When i was still playing the game, I made a lot of money. All from SP Farming

Yay for monkey. Last I remember, I had about 450mil on my account with sosun 52 spear +5 I bought for 220mil. Cant remember from who, but I have only been playing for like two months or maybe 3, farmed for about 2/3rds the time I was playing and then stopped when I got 150k sp. My nuker is only lvl 41 or 42 with about 100k+ unused XP and max skills.
How was I able to make that much money? Most of it was from farming at bandit archers, lots of drops and making elements. I tried merchanting but it just didnt work, I thought it would like I did on runescape but guess not.