500 Yuan Bank of Shansi, Chahar, & Hopei

The Bank of Shansi, Chahar & Hopei — commonly called the Jin-Cha-Ji Bank — was the financial arm of the Communist-controlled Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region, one of the most strategically significant anti-Japanese base areas operating behind enemy lines in North China. Notes issued in 1945 belong to the final phase of that wartime economy, printed and circulated as Japanese control over occupied territories was collapsing but before the Nationalists could reassert monetary authority in the region.

Denominations inflated sharply across this series as the border region economy strained under wartime conditions. The 500 Yuan figure, unthinkable in earlier Jin-Cha-Ji issues, reflects how far purchasing power had eroded by 1945. The bank itself was absorbed into the People's Bank of China at its founding in 1948.