Song Jingshi was born into a peasant family in Liu Guanzhuang, Gantun Township, Guan County, Shandong Province. On March 29, 1861 (February 19, 19th year of the eleventh year of Emperor Xianfeng of the Qing Dynasty), Song Jingshi, the leader of the Ganhei Banner Army in Guanxian County, Shandong Province, held a prison robbery uprising in Guanxian County, Shandong, igniting the fire of the Luxi armed struggle against the Qing.
In 1860 (the tenth year of Wenzong Xianfeng), a great famine occurred in Shandong, and the people could not feed themselves, and the Qing government doubled down on collecting money and grain and harsh taxes to suppress the Taiping Army and the Twist army uprising, which plunged the broad masses of the people into a deep and fierce situation, and the tide of struggle against Qing and anti-grain in various parts of Shandong was getting higher and higher. In this situation, Song Jingshi contacted the anti-Qing forces of the White Lotus Sect in Guanxian County, Tangyi and other places, organized and established an uprising team marked by green, yellow, white, red, and black flags. Because the government arrested the mass leaders who took the lead in resisting grain, it further aroused the resistance of the masses. To this end, Song Jingshi was elected by the leaders of the Five Banners to convene a meeting and agreed on a plan for a prison robbery uprising.
On March 29, 1861, Song Jingshi first sent people into the city of Guanxian as an internal response, and at night, they should join forces inside and outside, attacked the county seat, opened the prison, rescued the imprisoned people, lit firewood and grass, shouted in unison, and guanxian Zhixian and the officers and soldiers who guarded the city fled in panic. Song Jingshi led the crowd to open a warehouse to release grain, help the people, and announced an uprising that night.
After the uprising, the Black Flag Army and other rebel armies attacked the city and plundered the land, defeated the Qing army, and successively conquered 13 counties and towns in the border areas of Zhili (present-day Hebei), Shandong, as well as important ferries and market towns along the canal, and controlled a large area of plains in Shandong and Zhili. The uprising also greatly shocked the Qing Dynasty, and the imperial court sent the Minister of Qincha, Shengbao, to supervise the military affairs of Zhili and Shandong, and dispatched Qing troops from all over the country to surround and suppress the rebel army. Faced with the dangerous situation of the enemy and the enemy, in the case of heavy losses suffered by the rebel army, in order to preserve the strength, Song Jingshi expressed his acceptance of "appeasement" to Shengbao. The rebel army was reorganized and stationed in Henan, and later moved to Shaanxi.
In December of the first year of Tongzhi (1863), Song Jingshi resolutely returned to Shandong with his troops from Shaanxi, stationed at the Nanguanche Camp outside Linqing City, and used his status as a staff general as a cover to collect grain and wages, intercept tariffs, and actively expand the strength of the Black Flag Army. The following year, he designed to kill Wang Erxiang, Yang Mingqian, and other leaders of the Linqing landlord militia, controlled a large area south of Linqing, north of Yanggu, west of Liaocheng, and east of Guanxian County, and launched an attack on the Qing troops stationed along the canal, officially launching a second uprising.
The rebel army fought many battles with the Qing soldiers who came to suppress it and won the victory. Later, the Qing court used the British-trained foreign gun brigade against the rebels, causing the rebels to suffer heavy losses. Song Jingshi led the rest of his troops to fight in Zhili, Henan and other places, and then went to Anhui into Hubei, joined the Twist army, and insisted on the anti-Qing struggle. After that, the rebel army led by Song Jingshi participated in the battle to eliminate the Qing prince Monk Greenqin in Caozhou, Shandong.
In February of the tenth year of Tongzhi (1871), Song Jingshi was arrested and killed in Bozhou, Anhui.