Nationalist Army. For small arms, there was no standard rifle and a large variety of different weapons were used, which made supplying them with ammunition difficult. The most common rifles in use was the Chinese version of the Mauser 98k and the Hanyang 88, while other notable weapons included Chinese copies of the Czechoslovakian ZB-26 machine guns. Along with the great variation in equipment, there was also a disparity in sizes of units. Some "armies" had only a few thousand troops while some "divisions" several thousand. There was a standard divisional structure, but only the elite Guards divisions closer to the capital actually had anything resembling it. In addition to these regular army forces, there were multiple police and local militia, which numbered in the tens of thousands, but were deemed to be completely unreliable by the Japanese. Most of the units located around Beijing in northern China remained, in effect, under the authority of the North China Political Council rather than that of the central government. In an attempt to improve the quality of the officer corps, multiple military academies had been opened, including a Central Military Academy in Nanjing and a Naval Academy in Shanghai. In addition there was a military academy in Beijing for the North China Political Council's forces, and a branch of the central academy in Canton. A small navy was established with naval bases at Weihaiwei and Qingdao, but it mostly consisted of small patrol boats that were used for coastal and river defense. Reportedly, the captured Nationalist cruisers Ning Hai and Ping Hai were handed over to the government by the Japanese, becoming important propaganda tools. However, the Imperial Japanese Navy took them back in 1943 for its own use. In addition there were two regiments of marines, one at Canton and the other at Weihaiwei. By 1944, the navy was under direct command of Ren Yuandao, the naval minister. An Air Force of the Reorganized National Government was established in May 1941 with the opening of the Aviation School and receiving three aircraft, Tachikawa Ki-9 trainers. In the future the air force received additional Ki-9 and Ki-55 trainers as well as multiple transports. Plans by Wang Jingwei to form a fighter squadron with Nakajima Ki-27s did not come to fruition as the Japanese did not trust the pilots enough to give them combat aircraft. Morale was low and a number of defections