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5 000 000 Yuan
| Issuer | Central Bank of China |
|---|---|
| Year | 1949 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Portrait of Chiang Kai-shek in military uniform at right, set within a guilloche-bordered vignette printed in red on a light ground. The bank name in Chinese characters (中央銀行) appears at top centre, with the denomination rendered in large Chinese numerals at centre-left and in corner panels. Serial numbers and series prefix appear above the central denomination block. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | THE CENTRAL BANK OF CHINA 5000000 FIVE MILLION GOLD YUAN 1949 CHUNG HWA BOOK CO. LTD. |
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| Comments |
By mid-1949, the Nationalist government's monetary position had collapsed entirely. The gold yuan reform of 1948 had already failed catastrophically, and the Central Bank of China was issuing notes in denominations that would have been unimaginable eighteen months earlier. Five million yuan on a single note is not hyperbole — it is the arithmetic of a currency in terminal free fall, losing purchasing power faster than the presses could output new denominations.
Chung Hwa Book Company, primarily a publisher and printer with deep roots in Shanghai, had been pressed into banknote production as the Nationalist printing infrastructure fragmented under military pressure from Communist forces advancing southward.