“Having Had a Knowledge of the Land of Nephi”

According to the chronology chart in Appendix A, when Zeniff returned to the land of Nephi, only about 27 years had passed since Mosiah₁ had fled from that land to Zarahemla. Why then was a Nephite army going to spy on and destroy the Lamanites in the local land of Nephi? Had there been a war? It wasn't Nephite policy to initiate war. Was Zeniff's original group going to extract revenge for the plight of Mosiah₁, or to eliminate a threat to the peace of the Nephites in the land of Zarahemla, or both? Or neither? What does this allusion to war say about the extension of Lamanite-controlled boundaries and about how much the Lamanites knew of the location of the Nephites in the land of Zarahemla? Were the Lamanites spread out so far as to encroach upon the land of Zarahemla? If we assume a Mesoamerican setting, the travel distance from the proposed land of Zarahemla (Santa Rosa, Chiapas) to the proposed local land of Nephi (Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala City) is approximately 250 miles, which would take about 25-30 days on foot. [Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes] [See the commentary on Omni 1:12.]