Those forces were commonly known as puppet troops but went under different names during their history depending on the specific unit and allegiance, such as Nanjing Army.

[1] Originally, the Japanese did not allow Wang Kemin's Provisional Government of the Republic of China to have an army of its own and instead relied on a police force of 5,000 men for security.

In May 1938 steps were taken towards forming an actual army for his government by opening a military academy in Beijing, with an initial intake of a hundred cadets for a one-year course.

The target strength the Provisional Government wanted to reach was 13,200 men divided into 8 infantry regiments, with six of them being formed into brigades, commanded by a Chinese major general and a Japanese advisor.

A military academy was established with 320 cadets between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, with the intent of creating a new officer class "untainted" by prior service in the Nationalist Army and loyal to the Reformed Government.

[2] The Reformed Government Army was initially organized as follows:[2] In addition, a 'water patrol corps' was created in June 1939 to police the coastline and inland waterways.

[2] During its existence, the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China fielded a force that was estimated by Western sources to have been between 300,000 and 500,000 strong.

[3] Wang Jingwei initially planned to raise a force of twelve divisions under his personal command,[4] although most Nanjing Government troops were only under his nominal control throughout the war.

In the "Japan–China Military Affairs Agreement" signed by Japan and the Reorganized National Government, the Japanese agreed to train and equip an unspecified number of divisions for the Nanjing Army.

[4] Their Japanese advisors viewed the army as a strictly infantry force, providing it only with minimal artillery and armor, and what little they did receive was mostly used by Wang's three Capital Guard divisions.

[6] In addition, many local irregular units were raised as well, including militias, volunteer and rural guards, which were mainly formed in order to counter guerrilla fighters.

The Taxation Police Corps was created in Shanghai by Finance Minister Zhou Fohai for his own protection and owed its loyalty to him, and he sought to raise its quality to that of a regular IJA division.

Intelligence reports from 1944 indicate that those units who were stationed near Nanjing and took orders from Wang Jingwei's government were more effective and motivated than those who were further away and commanded by others.

Information regarding the Nanjing Army is incomplete and creating a full picture of the Wang Jingwei regime's order of battle is impossible.

In September 1941 a Central Military Academy was established in Nanjing with and initial enrollment of one thousand cadets between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.

Information on the exact details of their operations remain vague and hard to find, however it was known that they took part in several major actions during the war against both Communist partisans and the Nationalist Army.

They fought in support of Japanese forces against the Communist New Fourth Army and gave the insurgents heavy casualties before they retreated out of the area.

[10] From 1941 to 1944 the troops of Wang's military fought with Japanese forces in a campaign to eliminate Nationalist insurgents in the area between Hangzhou and the Yangtze River.

[11] Late in the war, with the defeat of Japan inevitable, several army units redeployed themselves in the Lower Yangtze region on orders of President Chen Gongbo.

Among those were Central Military Academy cadets, who built fortifications in Nanjing before fights broke out between the pro-Chen Gongbo and pro-Chiang Kai-shek factions.

[12] Reportedly, the Guards Divisions and some of the cadets from the Shanghai Naval Academy later distinguished themselves fighting for the Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War.

[3] The Navy of the Reorganized National Government was first created on 13 December 1940 by the Japanese, with an inauguration ceremony taking place in Weihaiwei.

[14] The air force of the Nanjing Government was first formed in May 1941 with the founding of an Aviation School that took in a hundred cadets, and its first aircraft–three Tachikawa Ki-9 trainers–were received around that time.

Morale was reportedly low and a number of Nanjing Air Force pilots made contacts with the Nationalist intelligence service.

[15] The only offensive craft that the Nanjing Air Force possessed were two Tupolev SB bombers which had been flown by defecting Nationalist pilots.

[17] This new Shanghai police force accepted anyone, including former criminals that had been released by the retreating Nationalists, and thus it was considered totally unreliable by the Japanese.

The Shanghai police continued to function after the creation of Wang Jingwei's government and the dissolution of the Great Way municipal authority, and further increased to 7,501 as of January 1941.