The Battle of Nanpeng Archipelago was a battle fought between the Chinese nationalists and the communists over the islands of the Nanpeng Archipelago off the Cantonese coast. The Nanpeng Archipelago is a small island chain in Nan'ao County off the coast of Shantou, and is named after the largest island, Nanpeng island (Nánpēng Dǎo, 南澎岛), home to 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 September20, 1952, over 150 nationalist strike force members riding in four large speedboats launched a surprise attack on Nanpeng 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 With training 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 Nanpeng island and after two hours of fierce battle, the nationalist resistance on