In the first set of RMB, there are 12 denominations, the minimum denomination is 1 yuan, and the maximum denomination is 50,000 yuan. "The first RMB issued was a 50-yuan note. This RMB was collected by Mr. Shi Lei, one of the founders of the People's Bank of China." Liu Wenhe said that in the past few years, someone had offered 500,000 yuan to buy from Mr. Shi. Old refusal. An old banknote printing worker recalls the story of the first set of RMB. Mr. Zhang Zhong is 76 years old and has been working at the Beijing Banknote Printing Factory since March 1949. As a worker, he personally experienced the printing of the first set of RMB. When he retired in 1990, Zhang Zhong was already the deputy director of the Policy Research Office of the Beijing Banknote Printing Factory. After retirement, he was hired back by the factory to engage in factory history research. After the seminar, Zhang Zhong introduced to reporters some stories before and after the launch of the first set of RMB. Why is there no portrait of Chairman Mao on the banknotes? When designing the first set of RMB, the designer originally planned to print Chairman Mao's face on the banknotes. "After learning about this, Chairman Mao said that the RMB belongs to the country and is issued by the people's government, and he is the chairman of the party. This is inappropriate. Therefore, Chairman Mao's face did not appear in the first set of RMB." Zhang Zhong explain. Zhang Zhong said that in order to reflect the theme that RMB belongs to "the people", the first set of RMB design team also rushed to produce many patterns that reflect people's production and life as banknote patterns. Why are there 62 editions? In the printing process of the first set of RMB, banknote printing plants in various places used 7 printing technologies, and finally there were 62 editions, which was the most among several sets of RMB. In the first set of RMB, there were 10 different versions of the 100-yuan coupon, which was the largest number of versions. Zhang Zhong said that the first set of RMB had the nature of a "war currency" in its early days - "Wherever the People's Liberation Army attacks, RMB will be issued wherever it goes." At that time, the Party Central Committee required that the first set of RMB be issued at 5 billion yuan. , but due to limited capabilities in various places, only the Beijing Banknote Printing Factory and Shanghai Banknote Printing Factory can design the format. "Since it is still a war period, we can only use whatever plates we have and materials we have." Zhang Zhong said that in order to adapt to the needs of the development of the situation, the Beijing Banknote Printing Factory found three trustworthy banks in Beijing. Printing plants help print semi-finished products, but the total volume is still difficult to meet demand. After discovering that the printing volume could not meet the needs of the liberation situation, and the banknote printing plants in North China had reached the printing volume limit, at the end of 1948, superiors decided that the Jiamusi banknote printing plant would print semi-finished RMB with a face value of 1,000 yuan. "At that time, it was stipulated that the words 'People's Bank of China' inscribed by Dong Biwu should be printed on the front and back of the RMB, but the Jiamusi Banknote Printing Factory did not have this information. In the end, the workers of the factory designed a slightly different font by themselves, imitating Dong Biwu's font. The bloated words 'People's Bank of China' are printed on the front of 1,000 yuan," Zhang Zhong said. After the first edition of the 1,000 yuan semi-finished product was printed, in order to avoid the blockade of the Kuomintang army, it was transported to Shandong by land and sea, and then sent by land to Shijiazhuang for printing. Due to poor information transmission, this version of the RMB printed the Arabic numerals on the left and the Roman numerals on the right. This is also contrary to other versions of the first set of RMB. . In addition, because Jiamusi Banknote Printing Factory also uses local materials, the length-to-width ratio of this version of the 1,000-yuan coupon is different from other formats, and is slightly longer and narrower. "After the People's Liberation Army liberates a place, it will look for a local banknote printing factory to print RMB." Zhang Zhong said that before entering the banknote printing factories in various places, military representatives will carry with them the RMB templates provided by the Beijing or Shanghai banknote printing factories. After moving in, the banknote printing plant copied the pattern and started printing. Similar to the situation at the Jiamusi banknote printing factory, the first set of RMB was affected by the war and local conditions in various banknote printing factories across the country, and different versions appeared. Zhang Zhong said: "Limited by the quantity of paper and ink, after each batch of paper and ink is used up, a completely different batch of paper and ink must be replaced. At this time, new layouts have to be redesigned to match these materials. Just In this way, there were 62 versions of the first set of RMB. "Why the Republic of China calendar was used. In the first set of RMB, the Republic of China calendar was used on the front and the AD year was used on the back.

Zhang Zhong said that the design of the first set of RMB completely eliminated semi-colonial overtones, and all patterns and characters with colonial overtones were not used. The first set of RMB did not have any English letters printed on it, also for this reason. In addition, in order not to highlight the individual, the president's signature is not printed on the ticket. Zhang Zhong said that the first set of RMB was issued in 1948. Since the Liberation War had not yet ended, the first set of RMB used the Republic of China chronology on the front and the AD chronology on the back. After the founding of New China, the central government began to design the second set of RMB in August 1950. However, due to the economic blockade faced by New China at that time and limited available resources, the second set of RMB was not issued until March 1955. Therefore, from the founding of New China to the complete stop of circulation of the first set of RMB in May 1955, New China had to continue to use the first set of RMB with the words "Republic of China" printed on it.