Dương Văn Dương (a.k.a. "Ba Dương") was born in 1900 to a family of poor peasants from Bến Tre. His mother remarried after his father's death and the family moved to Nhà Bè in the late 1920s, where Dương grew up to be a respected martial arts teacher.Bo Doi, ibid. In 1936, Dương started his criminal activities by providing protection services to the Tây Ninh-Phnom Penh bus station in Saigon. By 1940, he had become a kingpin of Cochinchina. In 1943, Dương joined the Communist party. In 1945, he stole weapons from the Japanese to arm his troops in order to fight the returning French forces. His Bộ Đội Ba Dương was reportedly one of the groups most feared by local French-trained militia. In 1945, the 2,000 armed men under different leaders in the Nhà Bè area elected Dương their commander. Together they chose to name the newly formed unit, the "Bình Xuyên Troops" (Vietnamese: Bộ Đội Bình Xuyên).Bo Doi, ibid.
