3 Nephi 3

Year 16: Governor Lachoneus got a letter from the Gadianton ringleader:

Most noble Lachoneus, your honor, your excellency, I praise you for your dogged defense of liberty and personal privilege. Some god must be helping you fight for your rights, property, and country.

But frankly, you’ve got to be kidding: we will whip you over and over till there’s not a shred of you left to whip. I run the Gadianton show and, if I said so, we could demolish all of you in a single day. I know my men and their abject ferocity, which, coupled with their innate and intractable hatred of you all, would leave you a mere puddle of gore.

So I’m writing you, not to gloat about our superiority, but to propose that you surrender right now,

handing over all your possessions of every kind, large and small. Or we’ll destroy you. Bonus addendum: we wouldn’t even make you slaves. You’d be full partners in whatever society we build from the wreckage of yours.

On all of this you have my word, which many folks trust, I swear. I give you a full month to decide. Then we start cutting your carotid arteries and running spears through your aortas, one by one. You’ll be as extinct as the dinosaurs.

By the way, my name is Giddianhi, governor of the Gadianton Secret Society (formerly the Gadianton Group II). Our ways are not so bad as you claim and they come down to us from the ancients—way before your religious tenets.

Since some of us hate shedding blood, we are making this offer to you not just as a deal you can thrive on, but also so we can keep the non-violent members of our church-state happy. So just give us everything you have and we won’t ask for more.

Giddianhi

Lachoneus was taken aback. What a brazen note. Wrongheaded at every level. He not only wasn’t falling for it, he called a regional prayer vigil, pleading God for a spiritual anti-Gadianton wall. He also ordered a mass relocation—men, women, kids, flocks, herds, furniture, everything—into a central place, around which they would build a real, non-spiritual anti-Gadianton wall, surrounded by round-the-clock guards.

But he added this proviso: “Unless you really up your piety and nudge your hearts toward God, none of this will work.” He said more along those lines, enough to shake people from their complacency.

Lachoneus had appointed various ranks in the army. Among the chief captains was a commander named Gidgiddoni. Since the church-state-army continuum was strong, Gidgiddoni was not only a brilliant tactician, but also a prophet and a chief judge.

People started to urge him to pray God would back them if they invaded Gadianton hill country. A surprise attack with God as the vanguard.

But Gidgiddoni said: “God forbid. He’d hand us over to the Gadiantons, given our residual reprobate ways. I think he’ll back us if we fight defensively only. Yes, I’m sure of it.”

So by the end of Year 17 the relocation wrapped up, tens of thousands of people and countless herds, furniture pieces, storable food (basically grains), all crowding into a technically undisclosed location. (Generally, it was scattered throughout suburban Zarahemla territory.)

Zarahemla, regionally speaking, was set as the main gathering place, with secondary watering holes between Zarahemla and Bountiful and between Bountiful and Desolation. Lachoneus preferred they stay southward because the north was cursed. They did, built walls and dug trenches, prayed and renounced sin, and mourned for the dark state they’d reached. Meanwhile, the hawkish Gidgiddoni led the new arms race, mandating that everyone forge armor, shields, and swords, string bows, and fill quivers with fresh arrows.