100 Yuan Yellow underprint

The People's Bank of China was established on 1 December 1948, and the first series of Renminbi notes — including this 100 Yuan — was issued almost immediately as Communist forces consolidated control over northern China. The currency was being printed and pushed into circulation while the civil war was still being fought, a logistical operation of considerable scale given the geographic fragmentation of liberated zones at the time.

Multiple printing facilities were involved across the first series, and attribution of specific notes to specific plants remains contested in the literature. The yellow underprint on this issue is one of several color variants in the 100 Yuan denomination from 1949, used as a security and differentiation measure rather than an aesthetic choice.