5 Yuan Bank of Pei Hai

The Bank of Pei Hai (北海银行) was the currency-issuing arm of the Shandong-Jiangsu border region's Communist administration during the final years of the Sino-Japanese War. Its notes circulated within liberated zones — territories where Nationalist and Japanese puppet currencies were actively suppressed and exchanged out. The 1945 dating places this note in the last operational year before Japan's surrender fundamentally reorganized all regional military currencies.

Border region notes of this type were printed under genuinely difficult wartime conditions, often on whatever paper stock could be sourced locally. Uniformity across the series is poor, and minor variations in ink color and paper weight are common rather than exceptional.