2500 Yuan Central Bank of China

The 2500 Yuan denomination was introduced in 1945 as hyperinflation was already consuming the Nationalist currency. The Central Bank of China had been printing in ever-larger denominations since the early 1940s, when wartime expenditure and Japanese occupation of coastal economic centers destroyed any realistic relationship between the money supply and available goods. Ta Tung Book Co. handled a substantial portion of this late-war output from Shanghai, operating under conditions that were themselves unstable as the war moved toward its conclusion.

The denomination itself — 2500 Yuan — is an awkward figure that signals fiscal desperation more clearly than any round number could.