100 Yuan Bank of Shansi, Chahar, & Hopei

The Bank of Shansi, Chahar & Hopei was a communist-controlled regional bank, established by the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region government — one of the major anti-Japanese base areas carved out behind enemy lines during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Notes issued in 1945 fall at the very end of that conflict, a period when the border region authorities were simultaneously fighting Japanese forces, managing wartime inflation, and preparing for the inevitable post-surrender confrontation with Nationalist forces.

Currency from the Jin-Cha-Ji region was declared inconvertible outside its issuing territory by design — economic isolation from Nationalist-controlled zones was deliberate policy, not a logistical failure. After 1949 the bank was absorbed into the People's Bank of China structure, and large quantities of regional notes were withdrawn and pulped, which accounts for the relative scarcity of high-denomination examples like this one.