Wu Tan was the son of Wu Shaoshi 紹詩, who worked for 20 years at the Board of Punishments, ending as its president. He participated to the composition of the fairly innovative 1740 Da Qing lüli as a "compiler revisor" 纂修官 especially in charge of "handily rewriting  section of "denominations and rules” 手訂名例. The son in turn entered the Board in 1762, and then exerted various provincial functions, like Provincial judge, and later Governor, both in Jiangsu province, berfore returning to the Board of Punishments as its president. Wu Father and son are mentioned in Kuhn's Soulstealers, the first as the"patriarch of a family of reputed jurists", both  incurring Qianlong's wrath for their sluggishness in sorcery hunting. They were finally spared in consideration of their eminent services and qualification in law. Kuhn reports emperor Qianlong's  reprimand to Wu Tan: "When you were serving in the Board of Punishment, you were an outstanding official. As soon as you are posted to the provinces, however, you take on disguting habits of indecisiveness and decadence, etc.” (p. 213). Wu Tan composed his "general examination" of the Qing code on the basis of the 1778-1779 edition, by applying the methof of "textual criticism" (kaozheng 考证) in the reading of the code and the reading of judicial archives, in order  to track the origins of the "substatutes" tiaoli 條例, whose fastly increasing number and growing inconsistency started to appear as a major problem in the proclaimed uniform application of law throughout the empire. Thus, he created the method late Qing jurists like Xue Yunsheng and Shen Jiaben used in their attempt to reform codified laws (J.B. April 17)