Where should the antecedent for "it" be?

When I posted a previous question, a contributor to this site amicably corrected my text, explaining that “it” needed and antecedent. Here is my text under consideration:

• Finally, the storm ended. Then, the two groups of men reached the centre of the field with their goods to trade. After they did it, each side took what was theirs and went back.

In the above paragraph, “did it” refers to “to trade”. Nonetheless, he made a correction which implies that “it” cannot stand on its own in the third sentence but needs to be explicitly mentioned before, i.e., “to trade” in the same sentence. The change resulted in something like this: “After they made their trade, each side…”

However, I incessantly came across a myriad of examples in widely known literary works in which “it” has its antecedent in a previous sentence or even paragraph.

You can read some of them:

• ‘Colonel Brandon is so delicate a man, that he rather wished any one to announce his intentions to Mr. Ferrars than himself.’
  ‘And so you are forced to do it.

  (Sense and sensibility, Jane Austen, 1811)

• ‘Suppose he did all this, what then?’ ‘What then!’ replied Sikes; with a tremendous oath. ‘If he was left alive till I came, I’d grind his skull under the iron heel of my boot into as many grains as there are hairs upon his head.’ ‘What if I did it!‘ cried Fagin almost in a yell.

  (Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens, 1839)

• You only just tell a boy you won’t ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that’s all. Anybody can do it.

  (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain, 1876)

• Syme was able to pour out for the first time the whole of his outrageous tale, from the time when Gregory had taken him to the little tavern by the river. He did it idly and amply…

  (The Man Who Was Thursday, a nightmare, G. K. Chesterton, 1908)

• That’s a wrestling hold, in case you don’t know, where you get the other guy around the neck and choke him to death, if you feel like it. So I did it.

  (The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951)

And you can also see it here:

• Don’t drink the milk. It smells terrible.

  (Cambridge Dictionary, 2021)

I would greatly appreciate your help in clarifying this matter.