In the mansion gate of the feudal era, interpersonal relationships are intricate and the rules are strict. In such an environment, Tan Zhonglin, a jinshi from Chaling County, Hunan, became the first in the court, with a prominent status, and dozens of members of a family lived in a house, and life was very lively. However, when there are many people, intrigue and open and secret battles between women are unavoidable, especially for low-status concubines, life is even more difficult.
In 1880, Tan Zhonglin's third son, Tan Yanhong, was born, and his mother Li was only Tan Zhonglin's concubine with a low status. However, Tan Yanmin showed extraordinary talent, and even the famous politician Weng Tongyi praised him and said: "Sanlinglang is also a great weapon, and his pen power can carry the tripod." Tan Yanmin's future was as Weng Tongyi expected, with the passage of time, in the twenty-eighth year of Guangxu (1902), Tan Yanmin was promoted to the middle school, and two years later he was promoted to the rank of Jinshi, and the official worshiped the bachelor of Hanlin, and his status rose.
As the saying goes, "one person gets the Tao, the chicken dog **" Tan Yanmin has not only become the pride of his father, but also the life-saving straw of his mother Li. The Li family was originally just a maid in the room, and she was a maid who married into the man's house with the hostess, but fate favored her. Tan Zhonglin had a relationship with Li after a chance drunkenness, and when Li became pregnant, Tan Zhonglin promoted her to a concubine, under the main wife.
However, despite this, after all, the Li family was born in Yahuan, and in the eyes of many people, she is no different from the people in the house. On many dinner occasions, Li could only stand silently at the dinner table and serve, and suffered the ridicule of the big house. Tan Zhonglin couldn't do anything when he saw that his concubine was treated like this, because in that feudal period, it was rare for a man to stand out for a woman. If it weren't for his son Tan Yanmin winning glory for him, he might not be willing to deal with the Li family at all.
In 1916, Li died of illness in Shanghai, and Tan Yanmin immediately put down his work and rushed from Hunan to Shanghai for funeral. At that time, he was already the overseer of Hunan, a position he had won with great difficulty, and the situation was turbulent, and once he left Hunan, he was likely to lose his official position. Tan Yanmin was subject to many restrictions, but he had to personally organize his mother's funeral. The following year, he carried his mother's coffin back to Tan's house in Hunan to arrange a funeral date.
However, a difficult problem arose: according to the Tan family's regulations, concubines were not allowed to go out of the gate of the ancestral hall after their death, and the coffin had to pass through this gate for funeral. Therefore, the relatives of the Tan family all stopped Tan Yanmin and insisted that they carry the Li family's coffin out through the side door. Tan Yanmin felt angry, her mother had married into the Tan family for many years, but she had never been respected as she deserved, but was looked down upon and bullied everywhere. Now that my mother has passed away, but I still can't get out of the funeral, isn't it too unreasonable?
So, Tan Yanmin climbed onto Li's coffin and ordered someone to carry the coffin and walk out of the gate with him. As soon as the clansmen wanted to stop it, Tan Yanmin sneered and said: Today, you will treat me as Tan Yanmin is dead, can't even I go through the gate?In the end, Tan Yanmin successfully defended his mother's dignity by another means.