Born in Pi County, Jiangsu, to a poor family, he attended the Sixth Normal School [zh] but left teaching in 1926 to join the military.

As a member of the CCP, he infiltrated the police to gather information on the Kuomintang (KMT) before ultimately joining the 17th Route Army under Yang Hucheng.

Hearing from his classmate Guo Zihua [zh] that the National Revolutionary Army had captured Wuhan as part of its Northern Expedition, in late 1926 Song decided to leave teaching and enter the military.

For fear that he had exposed himself, Song was subsequently transferred back to Pi County, where he joined the Special Branch of the CCP under Li Chaoshi [zh].

[3] Song married Xu Linxia, a fellow CCP member and leader of the Pi County Women's Branch, in October 1928.

The KMT, aware of the growing CCP presence in the region, dispatched Duan Muzhen to Pi to arrest suspected communists.

In 1929, he left for Beijing, where he spent time attending lectures and writing for the Ta Kung Pao before becoming attached to the army of General Yang Hucheng in Nanyang.

Song recruited numerous communists to work for the newspaper, and published coverage that was critical of KMT leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.

According to the Xifeng Concentration Camp Revolutionary History Memorial Hall, the couple were initially unable to maintain contact, as Xu was held at a portion of the camp reserved for women; however, after Song gained the support of the secret CCP cell under Luo Shiwen, Director Zhou Yanghao [zh] was convinced to allow them weekly interactions.

[5] The General Yang Hucheng Cemetery, a tourist attraction that has received a rating of 3A, is regularly visited by schoolchildren who clean the tombs.