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The Collaborationist Chinese Army in the Second Sino-Japanese War went under different names at different times depending on what puppet regime it was organized under. In each place the puppet army might be given various names. Often being called "Peace Preservation Corps" or "garrison" and so on of the locality it was raised in. Later, particularly under the Nanjing Nationalist Government they were organized in a system of Divisions, Corps and Armies.

During the Second Sino Japanese War, the Japanese occupied area was in continuous need for troops to suppress revolt and sabotoge to the Japanese lines of communication, diverting much of Japans regular army. In order to solve its manpower shortage on the front line (especially after 1942), and maintain rule over its rear areas in China they began using the local existing soldiers, recruiting the local people to be responsible for the occupied areas public security. Accordingly the Japanese occupied area puppet regimes established the North China Zhi'an Army and Nanjing National Revolutionary Army. The various puppet regimes had the right to control the puppet army, but Japanese military officers were authorized to command the local puppet army as necessary.

In 1938, the manpower in China's puppet armies was approximately 78,000 men. When Wang Jingwei established the Nanjing Nationalist Government after 1940, the numbers of the Chinese puppet army suddenly rose to 145,000 men. In March 1943, a British intelligence report estimated numbers at 345,130 men.

From 1942 to 1943, (as a result of the United State entry into the war) the national government, permitted National Revolutionary Army commanders faced with a disadvantageous situation (often a result of being caught between the Communist army and the Japanese army), to preserve their strength, by temporarily surrendering to the Japanese and joining the puppet forces. The result was the puppet army manpower started an explosive growth. According to the Communist Party of China statistics at the end of Second Sino Japanese War, about 62% of the men in the Chinese puppet army were originally with the National Revolutionary Army. Later in 1945, after the Japanese unconditional surrender, the Chinese military counted approximately 1.186 million people in all the puppet armies' stationed in China (except for Manchukuo), but some estimates had the count exceed 2 million. According to the later count, China the manpower of the puppet army surpassed that of the invading Jappanese army, the only time this was seen in any country in the Second World War.

See also

• Puppet state
• Manchukuo
• Chahar Political Council
• Autonomous Government of Eastern Hopei
• Mengjiang
• Provisional Government of China

Source:

• Jowett, Phillip S. , Rays of The Rising Sun, Armed Forces of Japan’s Asian Allies 1931-45, Volume I: China & Manchuria, 2004. Helion & Co. Ltd., 26 Willow Rd., Solihul, West Midlands, England.