Bùi Thị Xuân

Statue of Bui Thi Xuan in Quang Trung Museum, Binh Dinh

Bùi Thị Xuân (Chinese script: 裴氏春, d. 1802) was a Vietnamese woman general during the Tây Sơn Rebellion.

General Xuân was born in Bình Khê District (now Tây Sơn District), Bình Định Province. She is said to have learned martial arts as a child,^[1] and was reputedly a strong woman. Legend has it that she once rescued Trần Quang Diệu, who later became her husband, from a tiger. She and Trần Quang Diệu joined the Tây Sơn Rebellion early, and won many battles. She helped the Tây Sơn army train elephants, which participated in many battles. She became known as one of the five principal women in the Tây Sơn Dynasty.^[2]

When Phú Xuân (Huế) fell to Nguyễn Ánh, she followed king Cảnh Thịnh to Nghệ An, commanded 5000 troops and fought the Nguyễn forces in Trấn Ninh (Quảng Bình Province). In the second month of 1802, the Nguyễn forces became victorious. She joined her husband in Nghệ An and they were captured together by the Nguyễn forces. Both of them were executed; her husband was either beheaded or skinned, while she and her teenage daughter were crushed to death by an elephant. Today, she is celebrated as a Vietnamese hero. Many major cities have schools and streets named after her.

References

1. Turner, Karen (2008). "Bui Thi Xuan". The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History. Oxford University Press. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-19-514890-9.
2. George Edson Dutton The Tây Sơn Uprising: Society and Rebellion 2006 Page 236 "The latter is an account of the noted Tây Sơn female general Bùi Thị Xuân. Both of these texts Were Written in the second half of the nineteenth Century"