5 Jiao Baode County Bank

Baode County Bank was one of hundreds of xian-level (county) financial institutions established across Shanxi and neighboring provinces during the Second Sino-Japanese War, issuing small-denomination scrip to keep local commerce functioning after the collapse of normal banking channels. These county banks operated under varying degrees of Japanese-sponsored or Nationalist-affiliated authority depending on which forces controlled the district at any given moment — Baode, a small county on the Yellow River in northern Shanxi, changed hands more than once during this period.

County-level scrip from 1939 Shanxi survives in very small quantities. Institutional destruction of records and notes was common on all sides as front lines shifted.