100 Yuan

This is among the first notes issued by the People's Bank of China, which was formally established on 1 December 1948 — meaning some of these notes entered circulation within weeks of the bank's founding, while the civil war against the Nationalists was still ongoing. The Communist monetary system was being built in real time, consolidating several regional bank currencies into a single national issue.

Printing quality and paper stock vary noticeably across the series, a direct consequence of wartime production dispersed across multiple facilities in northern China. Attribution to a single printer is not straightforward.