Empress Guo (Cao Rui's wife)
| Empress Guo | |
|---|---|
| Empress of Cao Wei | |
| Born | (Unknown) |
| Died | 263 |
| Names | |
| Traditional Chinese | 郭皇后 |
| Simplified Chinese | 郭皇后 |
| Pinyin | Guō Huánghòu |
| Wade–Giles | Kuo Huang-hou |
| Posthumous name | Empress Mingyuan (Chinese: 明元皇后; pinyin: Míngyuán Huánghòu; Wade–Giles: Ming-yuen Huang-hou) |
Empress Guo (died 263), personal name unknown, formally known as Empress Mingyuan, was an empress of the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period. She was married to Cao Rui, the second ruler of Wei; she was his third wife and second empress. What little is known about her appears to show that she was an intelligent woman who fought hard to try to prevent her empire from falling into the hands of the Sima clan (Sima Yi and his sons Sima Shi and Sima Zhao) during the reigns of her adopted son Cao Fang and his cousin Cao Mao, but was unable to stem the tide.
The future Empress Guo was from Xiping Commandery (西平, roughly modern Xining, Qinghai). Her family was a powerful clan in the area, but during the reigns of Cao Rui's father Cao Pi (Emperor Wen), it was implicated in a rebellion, and she, among others in her family, was confiscated by the Cao Wei government. She somehow became a concubine of Cao Rui, and he greatly favored her.
In 237, Consort Guo was involved an incident that led to the death of Cao Rui's first empress (and second wife), Empress Mao. Once, when Cao Rui was attending a feast hosted by Consort Guo, Consort Guo requested that Empress Mao be invited to join as well, but Cao Rui refused and further ordered that no news about the feast is to be given to Empess Mao. However, the news leaked, and Empress Mao talked about the feast with him anyway. He became exceedingly angry, killed a number of his attendants whom he suspected of leaking the news to Empress Mao, and, inexplicably, ordered Empress Mao to commit suicide.
After Empress Mao's death, Consort Guo became the de facto empress, and her family members were given honorific titles (albeit with little power). She was not created empress, however, until Cao Rui grew ill around the new year of 239. He died a month later, and Empress Guo became empress dowager, but not regent, over his adopted son Cao Fang.
By Cao Rui's will, his distant cousin Cao Shuang and Sima Yi were regents, but Cao Shuang soon became the dominant figure in the government; while he put on an appearance of still respecting Sima, he effectively pushed Sima aside in governing the empire. How Empress Dowager Guo felt about this is not clear, for her political role during Cao Shuang's regency appeared to be minimal—even though Cao Shuang (and later the Simas) all at least formally submitted important matters to her, they decided on those matters without real input from her.
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Wikipedia