Empress Guo (Cao Rui's wife)

Empress Guo ( 223 - 8 February 264), personal name unknown, formally known as Empress Mingyuan, was an empress of the state of Cao Wei period of China. She was married to Cao Rui, the second ruler of Wei; she was his third wife and second empress. The limited information available about her appears to portray her as an intelligent woman who fought hard 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.

Family background and marriage to Cao Rui

The future Empress Guo was from Xiping Commandery (西平郡; roughly present-day Xining, Qinghai). Her family was a powerful clan in the area. But during the reign of Cao Rui's father Cao Pi, at some point before 223, her clan was implicated in a rebellion; she, among others in her family, was confiscated by the Wei government in the aftermath. She became a concubine of Cao Rui after his ascension to the throne, and he greatly favoured 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 was 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 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.

As empress dowager

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 respecting Sima Yi, he effectively pushed Sima Yi 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.

Cao Shuang was largely viewed as an incompetent regent who entrusted many of his associates who were equally lacking in ability. In 244, for example, under the advice of Li Sheng and Deng Yang, Cao Shuang, lacking in military talent, nevertheless carried out an attack against Wei's rival state Shu Han

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