Shi is also notable for joining, defecting from, then subsequently betraying the forces of Wu Peifu, Feng Yuxiang, Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Jingwei, Zhang Xueliang, and the Chinese Communist Party.

Shi eventually earned Feng's favor for displaying a strategic mindset during tactical meetings with his officers and showing off his hand-to-hand combat abilities he learnt during his three-month stay at a martial arts school (from which he was expelled after attempting to convince another student to take an exam for him).

Additionally, despite being a senior secondary dropout, Shi still possessed a significantly higher education than most of Feng's soldiers and officers, and thus gradually rose through his ranks.

After several engagements by the regiments had failed, Shi organized a "death squad" composed of 120 soldiers, personally gave each one three silver dollars and led the charge on the village, resulting in a complete takeover.

In 1924, Shi, along with Liu Guitang, led the North China National Protection Army, a largely independent unit that were known to engage in banditry in the rural area around Beijing.

[7] During the second phase of the Northern Expedition, areas controlled by the National Revolutionary Army in Henan Province was attacked and captured by the forces of Fan Zhongxiu [zh], a former Shaolin Monastery student-turned-soldier.

and subjected Nanjing to several hours of artillery barrage with a joint force of Tang, Li, and Chen, aiming at Chiang's office in the Presidential Palace.

After Tang was purged, Shi reconnected with Yan Xishan and through him got back in touch with Feng Yuxiang, who put him in charge of the 4th Area Corps of the Anti-Chiang Alliance Army and stationed him in Xinxiang.

It was later held in the opinion of the monastery that the event came about due to abbot Miao Xing violating the Vinaya through his self-defense initiative and that the negative karma led to his death and the 1928 cataclysm.

On 1 June, Shi received a reward of five million yuan and was named commander-in-chief of the 13th Route of the Anti-Rebel Army in an impromptu ceremony in Xuchang through Chiang's emissary Qian Dajun [zh].

[14] Despite this, Shi would still covertly assist the remainder of the anti-Chiang forces under Sun Dianying in the Battle of Eastern Henan, capturing Caozhuang Village with plans to kidnap Chiang from his command post at nearby Liuhe station [zh], but the troops assigned failed to make the 30 mile trek due to rain.

Shi then formed a military force headquartered in Xingtai, composed of tens of thousands of former soldiers under Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan and used them to occupy the Pinghan railway, having heard of Zhang's plans to do so.

Once in Manchuria on 31 July, Shi's soldiers were intercepted in a pincer movement by the armies of Chiang Kai-shek and the very much alive Zhang Xueliang, leaving only around 4,000 men to return to Dezhou.

[15] In September 1932, Shi was suspected of having taken part in the killing of warlord Zhang Zongchang, who had been a personal friend of his, in cooperation with his former allies Feng Yuxiang and Han Fuju, who had by then become military governor of Shandong.

[16][17] In October 1932, Shi left Jinan for Japanese-occupied Tianjin to attend clandestine meetings with Japanese general Kenji Doihara and collaborator Yin Rugeng, who had been providing him with local real estate for his cooperation.

Chiang Kai-shek was aware of this treachery and ordered Beijing station commander Chen Gongshu [zh] to arrange Shi's assassination, who in-turn tasked agent Wang Wen with going to Tianjin.

Throughout 1934, during the late stages of the Pacification of Manchukuo, he and Liu Guitang acted as agitators for the Japanese concession, conducting bandit operations and organising public unrest against ROC security forces within civilian zones in Yutian, Zunhua, and other areas bordering Tianjin from their headquarters in Qinghe (now a subdistrict of Beijing).

The perpetrator, Li Zhenhua, claimed to have been acting on behalf of Shi and his inner circle, but Japanese officials heading the investigation instead blamed Tao Shaoming, who briefly held the executive office of supervisor and special delegate to the Manchukuo buffer zone before being ousted after refusing offers to become a collaborator.

By this point, Song held a great deal of disdain for Shi, knowing full-well of Shi's repeated betrayals, but due to outside pressure from the Japanese, who held control over his governance, Song was convinced to make him the commander of the 181st Division, supposedly composed of former bandits under Feng Shoupeng in Hebei, to stop his persistent requests and keep him away from the Japanese forces he would likely be colluding with otherwise.

[15] In the early stages of the Second Sino-Japanese War in July 1937, following the Marco Polo Bridge incident, Shi pledged to aid the KMT in the resistance against the invasion of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces, but secretly planned to overthrow Chiang from his leadership position, both in collaboration with and separately from several other ex-warlords.

Shi ended up fully double-crossing the communists by staging a mutiny in July, 1939 and fled to Shanxi, subsequently being tracked down by the Eighth Route Army on January 30, 1940.

Throughout February, Shi suffered substantial casualties through Chen Zaidao's 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army in Hebei, Shanxi, before he was able to make it across the Wei River to Henan's Qingfeng County.

[21][23][24] In spring 1940, Shi, who had thus far kept his collaboration with the Imperial Japanese Army largely covert and on a transactional level, agreed with his contact Sasaki in Kaifeng and fellow NRA general-turned collaborator Zhang Lanfeng [zh] to use his troops to strike against his fellow Chinese, whether that be KMT or CCP, starting on precisely midnight to 1 January, 1941, for which he was to be given the leadership of a puppet regime the Japanese would establish in Southeastern China.

In response to this, Shi attempted to absorb several of the troops under Gao's command into his own, but despite being superior and subordinate in rank, both controlled an equal portion of soldiers, who refused to subject the regiment size to change.