100 Yuan Central Bank of China

By 1943, the Central Bank of China was producing currency under extreme wartime pressure, with inflation already eroding public confidence in fiat issues. The Central Trust of China Printing Department — a government organ rather than an independent security printer — handled production domestically, a logistical necessity as access to foreign printers had been severed by the Japanese occupation of coastal cities.

This note belongs to a period when successive high-denomination issues were required within months of each other simply to keep pace with purchasing power collapse. The hyperinflationary spiral that followed made most wartime Nationalist issues effectively worthless by 1945.