The communist task force sailed to Wanshan Archipelago at the dawn of May 25, 1950. Shortly before dawn, the advance guard of the communist force in charge of fire support reached the nationalist anchorage at the Laurel Mountain (Guishan, 桂山) Island. The communist gunboat "Liberation", a former nationalist gunboat named "Dancing Phoenix" defected to the communist side commanded by its former nationalist commander, Captain Lin Wenhu (林文虎), a brilliant naval officer, launched a surprise attack on the nationalist naval force at the anchorage under the cover of darkness. Fully aware that his 25-ton gunboat was completely incapable of sinking its large opponents each displaced over a thousand tons, Captain Lin skillfully ordered his crew to concentrate fire on the superstructures of larger nationalist ships. Nearly every nationalist large warship in the anchorage had its bridge struck, and the flagship, the frigate "Taihe" suffered the most: nearly everyone on the bridge was either killed or wounded, and Qi Hongzhang (齐鸿章), the nationalist commander-in-chief was severely wounded himself. With the commander-in-chief severely wounded and most of his staff killed, the nationalist command in charge of both land and naval defense was thus effectively paralyzed. The confined space of the anchorage severely limited the maneuverability of the nationalist warships for fearing collision in the darkness, and the communist gunboat was able to utilizing the blind spots of the larger nationalist naval guns by fighting at extremely close quarter when engaging the larger nationalist ships after sinking a nationalist gunboat. In the meantime, two other communist gunboats, "Vanguard" and "Struggle", managed to sink two nationalist gunboats east of Ox Head (Niutou, 牛头) Island, while two battalions of the communist landing force took Green Islet (Qing Zhou,青洲) and Triangle (Sanjiao, 三角) Island.