Bao Luong

Bao Luong's passionate fight against French rule led her to become involved in an assassination plot. On December 8, 1928, Le van Phat was found in his home on Barbier Street. Le van Phat was known as Lang to the members of the Revolutionary Youth League. Lang was the chairman of the Saigon Provincial regional committee of the Revolutionary Youth League. Lang was accused of forcing a younger member of his cell to become his mistress. He also began abusing power, disrespecting orders, and missing meetings. Bao Luong chaired the meeting where the decision to execute Lang's murder was made. She directed members at the meeting to draw ballots to see who would commit the murder and three men (including Bao Luong's cousin) were selected. Bao Luong drafted a love letter which was used to make sure Lang would be home at the time of the murder. Her cousin and the two other men attempted to kill Lang with poison, before slitting his throat. The Central Committee of the Revolutionary Youth League was against the murder and ordered the Saigon cell to disband. This group went on to become the Communist Party of Indochina. After Bao Luong and her fellow Saigon cell members refused, an anonymous letter was sent to the Republic of Vietnam National Police, known as the Surete, that implicated Bao Luong and other league members in the murder of Lang.

Nguyen Trung Nguyet grew up on her parents farm in Binh Dai. Although few girls received an education at this time, Nguyen Trung Nguyet went to an all-boys night school run by her uncle. At nine years old her family moved from Binh Dai to Rach Gia (now Kien Giang), and at age twelve, they again uprooted to Phuoc Long (now part of Bac Lieu Province). Her father, Nguyen van Nham, was a French resistor, and told her stories of anticolonial resistance. He encouraged her to write patriotic poems and question the French rule. At her age, most young Vietnamese women were expected to be married, but Nguyen Trung Nguyet did not want to be distracted from the revolution against the French. Trung Nguyet often tried to persuade her parents to let her leave home to engage in revolutionary activities, but they resisted. In the Spring of 1927, Nguyen Trung Nguyet left home for Saigon, where she stayed with her aunt, Kim Oanh and her uncle Ton Duc Thang. Around the time she left home, Nguyen Trung Nguyet adopted the name Bao Luong (“Precious Honesty”), which she had originally used as a pen name while writing poetry.

Bao Luong (1909-1976) was born Nguyen Trung Nguyet (“faithful moon), in the rural Bình Đại District of Vietnam’s Bến Tre Province. She was a member of the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League, a communist group fighting against French rule in Vietnam. She became the first female political prisoner in Vietnam.