1000 Yuan Central Bank of China

The Central Bank of China's 1944 high-denomination issues came at a moment when wartime inflation was already badly eroding public confidence in fiat currency. By 1944, the Nationalist government's money supply had expanded so dramatically to fund military operations against Japan that a 1000 Yuan note, which would have been a substantial sum a decade earlier, was losing purchasing power faster than it could circulate.

The Central Trust of China Printing Works produced this note domestically — a logistical achievement in itself, given that earlier Republican-era notes had frequently relied on foreign security printers. By the mid-1940s, that dependence had become impossible to sustain.