What was money worth during the Republic of China (1912 - 1949) era? I'm working on translating the following sentence:


  一年学费都要化千把，一套童子军服都要四五百


The book takes place during the Second Sino-Japanese War which is during the Republic of China era.

I would like to make the numbers more relevant for modern readers, but I'm struggling to figure out how much a thousand and four or five hundred is actually worth in today's currencies.

My searches keep bringing up info about Taiwanese money, and not Mainland Chinese money.

Any ideas?
According to Wikipedia, in 1941 20 Chinese yuan was equal to 1 United States dollar, so 1 Chinese yuan was equal to 0.05 US dollars at the time.

Using an inflation calculator for the US dollar, 1 Chinese yuan would be 0.87 US dollars in 2019. This would give the cost of the school fees to be 870 US dollars or 27,500 NTD, and the children's uniform to be 350–390 US dollars or about 11,000 – 12,000 NTD.