Moroni’s Plan to Free the Prisoners
When Moroni got this letter, he was more angry. He knew that Ammoron understood that he was lying. Ammoron knew that it was not a fair reason to start a war against the Nephites. He said: I will not trade prisoners with Ammoron unless he stops his war plan like I said in my letter. I will not let him have any more power than what he has now. I know the place where the Lamanites are guarding my people who they captured. Since Ammoron would not agree to my letter, I will do what I said. I will fight them until they beg for peace.
When Moroni said these words, he told his men to search. He wanted to find a man who came from Laman’s family. They found one man named Laman. He had been a servant of the king that Amalickiah killed. Moroni told Laman and a few of his men to go to the guards watching the Nephite prisoners. The Nephites were kept as prisoners in the city of Gid. So Moroni sent Laman and a few men who were chosen to go with him.
Laman Tricks the Guards
That evening, Laman went to the guards watching the Nephites. They saw him coming and called out to him. But he said to them: Don’t be scared. I am a Lamanite. We escaped from the Nephites. They are asleep. We took some of their wine and brought it with us. When the Lamanites heard this, they were happy to see him. They said to him: Give us some of your wine so we can drink. We are glad you brought wine with you because we are tired. But Laman said to them: Let’s save our wine until we go fight the Nephites. But this only made them want to drink the wine more. They said: We are tired. Let us drink the wine. Soon we will get more wine with our food. That will make us strong to fight the Nephites. Laman said to them: You can do what you want. They drank a lot of the wine. It tasted good to them. So they drank more and more. It was strong wine. They drank and were happy. Soon they were all drunk. When Laman and his men saw that they were all drunk and sleeping deeply, they went back to Moroni. They told him everything that had happened.
The Prisoners Are Freed
This was what Moroni had planned. Moroni had his men ready with weapons of war. He went to the city of Gid while the Lamanites were in a deep sleep and drunk. He threw weapons in to the prisoners so that they were all armed. He gave weapons to their women and to all of their children who were old enough to use a weapon of war. When Moroni had given weapons to all those prisoners, all of this was done very quietly. Even if the Lamanites had woken up, they were drunk. The Nephites could have killed them.
But Moroni did not want to do that. He did not like murder or killing. He wanted to save his people from being destroyed. For this reason, he would not do something wrong. He would not attack the Lamanites and kill them while they were drunk. But he got what he wanted. He had given weapons to those Nephite prisoners who were inside the city walls. He had given them power to take control of the parts inside the walls. Then he told the men who were with him to move back a little. They surrounded the Lamanite armies.
This was done during the night. When the Lamanites woke up in the morning, they saw that they were surrounded by the Nephites on the outside. And their prisoners had weapons on the inside. They saw that the Nephites had power over them. In this situation, they knew it was not a good idea to fight the Nephites. So their chief captains gave up their weapons of war. They brought them out and threw them at the feet of the Nephites. They begged for mercy. This was what Moroni wanted. He took them as prisoners of war and took control of the city. He let all the prisoners who were Nephites go free. They joined Moroni’s army and made his army much stronger.
Moroni Keeps Winning
He made the Lamanites who he had captured start working. They made the walls stronger around the city of Gid. When he had made the city of Gid strong like he wanted, he had his prisoners taken to the city of Bountiful. He also guarded that city with a very strong force.
Even though the Lamanites tried many tricks, the Nephites kept and protected all the prisoners they had taken. They also kept all the land and advantages they had won back. The Nephites began to win again. They got their rights and freedoms back.
The Lamanites tried many times to surround them at night. But when they tried this, they lost many prisoners. They tried many times to give their wine to the Nephites. They wanted to kill them with poison or make them drunk. But the Nephites did not forget the Lord their God during these hard times. They could not be trapped. They would not drink their wine. They would not drink any wine unless they had first given it to some of the Lamanite prisoners. They were careful so that no poison would be given to them. If their wine would poison a Lamanite, it would also poison a Nephite. So they tested all their drinks.
It was time for Moroni to get ready to attack the city of Morianton. The Lamanites had worked hard and made the city of Morianton very strong. They kept bringing new soldiers into that city and also new supplies of food. This ended the twenty-ninth year of the judges ruling over the people of Nephi.