The Japanese Central China Area Army drafted plans that month to set up its own puppet government in the Lower Yangtze region.

He and several other recruited candidates met in Tokyo and it was later decided at a meeting on 19 February 1938 that the regime would use the old flag and anthem of the Chinese Republic (Beiyang Government).

[2] The Reformed Government of the Republic of China was established by Liang Hongzhi and others on 28 March 1938, and was assigned control of the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui as well as the two municipalities of Nanjing and Shanghai.

[6] The Reformed Government army was led by Pacification Minister (Chinese: 绥靖部部长; pinyin: Suíjìng bù bùzhǎng) Ren Yuandao and initially consisted of about 10,000 men at its creation, and later rose to 30,000 by 1939.

A military academy was set up with an initial class of a few hundred cadets, in order to provide a reliable officer corps that was "untainted" by previous service in the National Revolutionary Army.