5 Tiao Yuan Heng Li Empire private bank issue

Yuan Heng Li was one of the so-called "qianzhuang" — traditional Chinese private money shops operating in the interstices of the formal banking system. These institutions issued their own notes backed by nothing more than local reputation and whatever silver reserves they chose to maintain, entirely outside the nominal regulatory reach of the newly established Republic. The 1913 date places this note in the chaotic transitional year immediately following the Xinhai Revolution, when the Qing monetary framework had collapsed but the Republic's banking infrastructure had not yet filled the gap.

Survival rate for qianzhuang notes of this period is extremely low. Most were redeemed and destroyed by the issuing house itself, and any institution that failed — as enormous numbers did between 1912 and 1916 — left its outstanding notes worthless and usually discarded.