10 Sen Japanese Military Occupation

Japan's military occupation currency for China was issued through a deliberate bureaucratic fiction: the notes bore no explicit Japanese attribution on their face, a calculated move to normalize their use among a Chinese population that had just watched its own currency system be systematically destabilized. The Central Reserve Bank and Federal Reserve Bank puppet structures came later — this 1939 series preceded those institutions and circulated directly under military authority during the early consolidation of occupied territory.

The Cabinet Printing Bureau, which also produced domestic Japanese government securities and postage, handled production. Smallest denomination in the M series, and the one most likely to have actually changed hands in daily transactions.