10 Yuan Bank of Shansi, Chahar, & Hopei

The Bank of Shansi, Chahar & Hopei was the financial institution of the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region, one of the Communist Party's major anti-Japanese base areas carved out of territory behind enemy lines in North China. Notes like this one financed guerrilla operations, local government, and agrarian reform programs in areas the Nationalist government in Chongqing had effectively lost control of years earlier. The bank had been issuing currency since 1938, operating under genuinely difficult wartime conditions — printing facilities were primitive, mobile, and constantly threatened.

By 1945 the Japanese surrender was imminent, and this issue appeared as the border region was consolidating rather than contracting. The S3174A and S3174B variants likely reflect differences in printing block or paper batch rather than any issuing distinction — a common result of decentralized wartime production.