Tan Qian, styled Rumu, was a native of Haining in the Qing Dynasty. He was fond of examining the rise and fall of ancient and modern times and was familiar with the historical allusions of past dynasties.

Migration and Distribution The Tan clan originated in Shandong. There were also people with the surname Tan among the ethnic minorities in southern Ba (now eastern Sichuan and southwestern Hubei) during the Han Dynasty. The Tan clan in southern Ba might have been formed by the survivors of the Tan State who fled to southern Ba and merged with the local ethnic groups. In the early days, the Tan clan mainly multiplied and developed within the territory of Shandong Province. Later, due to wars, natural disasters, official transfers and other reasons, they left their native land and migrated to various places. By the Han Dynasty, the Tan clan had spread to Henan, Shanxi and other places. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Tan clan began to move to Guangdong, and during the late Tang Dynasty, they moved to Jiangxi. During the Five Dynasties period, Tan Qiao, a native of Quanzhou, Fujian, practiced the arts of fasting, qi - cultivation and alchemy on Songshan Mountain. He put forward the idea of "equalizing food" and fantasized about a "Taihe" society of "no kinship, no estrangement, no love, no hatred". Since the Song Dynasty, people with the surname Tan have been increasingly seen in historical records, and their distribution has become wider, mainly concentrated in the southern region, including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and other places. Around the Qing Dynasty, some members of the Tan clan in Fujian and Guangdong migrated to Southeast Asia and became overseas Chinese in countries such as Singapore.