2 Yuan / 2 Yan Ta Chiang Bank / Dagiang Inxang

Ta Chiang Bank (大江銀行) was one of numerous regional Chinese banks operating under Japanese-sponsored or collaborationist administrations during the final years of the Second Sino-Japanese War. By 1945 the military and political situation had collapsed to the point where notes issued that year by many such institutions never achieved meaningful circulation — printing and distribution outpaced any realistic economic function.

The Pick reference S3699 places this firmly in the "Puppet Banks" category of Chinese provincial issues, a classification that itself tells you more about the note's legitimacy in retrospect than any contemporary authority would have acknowledged. Survival rates for these late-war regional issues vary enormously; some were printed in quantity but destroyed after liberation, others surfaced decades later in warehouse lots.