Battle of Nanpēng Archipelago Battle of Nanpēng Archipelago was a battle fought between the Chinese nationalists and the communists over the islands of Nanpēng Archipelago ( , " Nanpeng Liedao " ) off the Cantonese coast during the Chinese Civil War and resulted in communist victory . The Nanpēng Archipelago is a small island chain in Nan ' ao County off the coast of Shantou , and is named after the largest island , Nanpēng island ( Nanpēng Dao , 南澎岛 ) , the home of a fishing community of more than 400 people . The archipelago was deemed not important for most of the Chinese Civil War and the nationalists therefore did not deploy any troops on the island , and when Guangdong fell into the communist hands , the archipelago also fell . The communists believed the same thing the nationalists had believed and did not deploy any troops to the archipelago either after the nationalists withdrew , but small patrol teams of 2 to 3 were regularly sent to many of the islands . First stage . As the nationalists launched their insurgent strikes against the communists , the nationalist strategists believed that archipelago may serve as a steppingstone to launch assaults against the mainland and decided to take the archipelago . On September 20 , 1952 , over 150 nationalist strike force members riding in four large speedboats launched a surprise attack on Nanpēng island . The token communist force patrolling the island consisted of only three members : a deputy naval infantry platoon commander with last name Zhang ( 张 ) , who was the patrol team leader , a sailor named Qiu An ( 邱安 ) , and a militiaman named Lin Xiaofa ( 林小发 ) . After a futile resistance , all three were killed by the overwhelming enemy force . Second stage . The communists would not let the nationalists have the opportunity to set up a forward base at their doorstep and immediately began to plan a counterattack . However , due to the urgent defense needs from other parts of the vast coastal regions , the job of retaking the archipelago was given to the ground force , and a strengthened battalion of the communist 41st Army was assigned the mission . However , it was soon discovered that the unit was ill prepared for an amphibious landing and as a result , the schedule had to be pushed back to first allow more than 20 days of training to be completed . Third Stage . Once the training was complete , the communist battalion rode in junks and departed on October 19 , 1952 at 5 : 00 pm . At 10 : 00 pm , the communist force landed successfully on Nanpēng island and after two hours of fierce battle , the nationalist resistance on the island ceased and the survivors attempted to hide . The mop up operation and skirmishes on other islands completely stopped the next day at 4 : 00 am , with the archipelago firmly back in the hands of the communists . The communists managed to kill 79 enemy troops on Nanpēng island , including the nationalist commander , major general Huang Songsheng ( 黄颂声 ) , and his deputy commander , also a major general . 37 nationalist troops were captured alive on Nanpēng island , and the highest ranking nationalist prisoner of war was the director of the political directorate , Major Gao Xueqian ( 高学谦 ) . Another 27 nationalist troops were killed and more than a dozen captured alive from other islands and islets of the archipelago . The communists suffered 86 fatalities and more than 300 wounded , almost all soldiers in the battalion reported as casualties . Outcome . The nationalist defeat proved that it was impractical to set up forward base at the enemy ’ s doorstep while the base is far away from the nationalist strongholds , because it was impossible to reinforce the distant base in time during combat . The communists , on the other hand , had paid a heavy price in their attempt to retake the archipelago because they had gravely underestimated the enemy and although the mission was a success , it was a very costly victory , resulting in almost every task force member becoming a casualty . The communists had numerical superiority but infantry armed only with rifle s , light machine gun s and hand grenades had a very difficult time in exterminating the numerically inferior enemy that was much better armed with superior weaponry .