Tang was born in Shengxian County, Zhejiang Province, and later came to Dafangkou from afar. His family has been in business for generations. When he was young, his family fortune declined. At the age of fifteen, his family's property was destroyed because of his brother's lawsuit, and life became increasingly difficult. He went to sell clothes and continued to eat after 15 years old. Tang Zhilian began to sell books for the sky at an early age. He used to be a middle school teacher, and Miao Zi, the later Shaoxing magistrate, also served in the shogunate. In the ninth year of Xianfeng in Qing Dynasty (1859), Cohen won the third place after the provincial examination and became a juren. He once lived in the capital and was awarded the honorary record of the National Museum of History. After discussing the vacancy, he successively served as the magistrate of Poyang, Fengxin and Cheng Nan in Jiangxi. At the age of 44, he left Beijing for Jiangxi at the invitation of Governor Liu Kunyi, and served as the editor-in-chief of Jiangxi Tongzhi. At the age of 56, he died in Cheng Nan's official residence. Tang Zhilian was brilliant all his life, and he had deep attainments in painting, calligraphy and seal cutting. He is also a poet and scholar. He is the author of the text of a lay man in a sad temple, a collection of poems left behind, notes on the last words of the Eight Dynasties, and a chronicle of world places of interest, etc.
Zhao's calligraphy, immersed in the North Monument and melted into the Han and Wei Dynasties, was widely adopted and acquired. With its lively posture and flying momentum, it is unique, opening up a new realm of tablet calligraphy in the late Qing Dynasty and leading a generation.