After the Germans left, in 1938, the Soviet Union started to support the Nationalists again. The National Revolutionary Army facing Japanese forces had only a small number of armoured vehicles and mechanised troops formed into the three armoured battalions to defend a large front. In August 1937, Chiang Kai-shek's government negotiated with the Soviet government for military aid. The Soviets stepped in and began to provide advisers and tanks arrived in China for the first time in March 1938. After the Chinese armoured force was mostly destroyed in the battles for Shanghai and Nanking, new tanks, armoured cars and trucks from the Soviet Union and Italy made it possible to create the only mechanized division in the army, the Soviet-advised and organized 200th Division, which consisted of one tank regiment and one motorised infantry regiment, and equipped with the T-26 light tank.