Castanea henryi is an important woody grain plants in south of China. The current research on the fruit development of C. henryihenryi mainly focuses on fruit component analysis, fruit quality analysis, and fruit processing, whereas the molecular mechanisms involved in fruit development remain to be uncovered. Transcriptome sequencing and analysis were conducted on kernel in the beginning of starch synthesis peak phase of C. henryi using Illumina platform-based strategy. Expression patterns of seven starch and sucrose metabolism-related Unigenes were assayed with real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) method. The results showed that de novo assembly generated a total of 53 629 Unigenes with average length of 746 bp. Among them, 26 739 unigenes were annotated against NR, NCBI and Swiss-Port protein databases, 14 413 Unigenes were assigned 25 categories by comparing with COG (Clusters of Orthologous Groups) database, and 33 926 Unigenes were assigned 3 categories (cellular component, molecular function and biological process) and 58 branches with GO (Gene Ontology) database. Functional annotation against KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) database identified 5 277 Unigenes which were mapped to 116 metabolic pathways. Moreover, the qPCR analysis showed that two Unigenes CH. 29636 and CH. 11971 had a gradual increase, while the other 5 genes（CH.31302，CH. 33690，CH. 19238，CH. 30128，and CH. 13088）increased at the early stage and then decreased. The expression profiles of the 7 genes are in accordance with the accumulation of starch and sucrose in the developing fruits of C. henryi. This study provides a foundation for further characterizing the functional genes involved in the formation of fruit quality in C. henryi.