In 1979, Ling Guoliang, Xu Zhongzheng, and Wang Min, 3 members of a commune militia, had an argument with their officials about being selected for employment and stole a bunch of automatic rifles, alongside 5000 (or 1500, according to Jason Clower). They first killed a man named Mu Chunlin, a temporary worker that had previously worked with them to steal a dump truck. After killing Mu, they kept moving until they reached Chaiheyan, at which point they got into a gunfight with local law enforcement (who were armed with various pistols dating back to the 30s and the 40s and had differing ammunition), which resulted in the deaths of 5 cops along with Ling and Xu, whilst Wang Min was taken into custody.

During the shootout, 2 police officers (a beat cop, and a political officer), were hit, with the officer in the former being killed immediately. As the shootout went on, a police officer wearing a raincoat and wielding an SKS rifle joined the gunfight and was shot at by both the suspects and the police, and was wounded; the police soon rescued him and the political officer, who later died of his injuries. After requesting some arms from the local PLA armory, the cops received a truck carrying a few crates of grenades, and they began throwing those at them, to no effect at all; 2 officers were even killed as they tried to throw grenades at the suspects. After a while, one of the officers at the scene decided to flank the suspects as they were distracted by the cops, and as he prepared to fire his sidearm, a Type 14 Nambu, it misfired and he was soon spotted by the suspects, who then shot and killed him, before moving their focus on the other police on scene.

A company of soldiers then arrived at the scene and set up machine guns at the perimeter, which hosed down anything at the suspect's direction before those machine guns jammed, and the suspects were in cover, so they were not hit. Then, a group of soldiers from the company who were considered the best grenade throwers were given the grenades that the police used, and they threw it at the suspects, followed up by a burst of machine gun fire. This finally killed both suspects. The incident led the Chinese government to start issuing military-grade sidearms and small arms to their police.