This year marks the 66th anniversary of the 823 Battle. On August 23, 1958, at around 6 p.m., the islands of Kinmen and Lieyu to the east of Xiamen, China, were suddenly hit by intense shelling from the Chinese Communist Party, triggering months of artillery exchanges between the two sides, resulting in tens of thousands of casualties. This shelling incident became known as the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, referred to by Taiwan as the “823 Battle of the Taiwan Strait,” while the Chinese Communist Party named it the “Second Kinmen Shelling.”
Although we often refer to it as the 823 artillery battle, this battle also involved naval and aerial combat. The most intense shelling took place between August 23 and October 5, 1958, followed by sporadic shelling that continued until December 25, 1978.
Around 5:30 p.m. on August 23, 1958, the Chinese troops concentrated more than 600 artillery pieces in Xiamen, Yandun Mountain, Liandou, and Weitou, launching a sudden assault on the main military targets in Kinmen Island. The entire island was engulfed in flames and smoke. The Kinmen Defense Command, command posts, artillery positions, observation posts, and airport were fiercely bombarded, with over 40,000 shells falling within two hours, and a total of more than 57,000 shells that day. All activities of the Kinmen garrison came to a halt, communication between various command centers and units was completely severed, plunging Kinmen into chaos.
At that time, personnel of the Kinmen Defense Command were gathered at the Cuiyu Waterfront Restaurant on Mount Taiwu for a meal when they were suddenly attacked by shellfire, resulting in heavy casualties and the death of three deputy commanders of the Defense Command. The Kinmen Defense Command Commander Hu Lian was also supposed to attend the dinner at the Cuiyu Waterfront Restaurant, but on that day, the Minister of National Defense Yu Dawei visited Kinmen for inspection. In the evening, along with Hu Lian, Chief of Staff Liu Mingkui, and the American military advisory group Kinmen team, they gathered at another restaurant. Although they were also targeted by shelling, it was not as fatal as the attack on the Cuiyu Waterfront Restaurant, and everyone managed to survive.
Prior to the 823 shelling, Kinmen had completed comprehensive underground fortification of all military positions on the island. Therefore, despite the sudden and intense shelling, the Kinmen garrison’s combat capability was preserved. On the 823 and the following day, they were able to launch large-scale artillery counterattacks, inflicting significant losses on Xiamen’s People’s Liberation Army artillery. Subsequently, although the Chinese troops continued to shell Kinmen, the scale of the shelling noticeably decreased.
Due to the extensive underground constructions, the main force of the Kinmen National Army remained intact, and the Kinmen artillery was able to effectively counterattack. Faced with the inability to achieve the set goals, Mao Zedong had to change the large-scale military operations against Kinmen into a long-term blockade, attempting to use the siege of the 100,000-strong National Army troops on Kinmen as a bargaining chip in political negotiations with the United States to gain strategic political benefits.
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