trad kingdom simp death_date wg pinyin post title birth_date article_title name
毛皇后 cao wei 毛皇后 237 mao huang-hou máo huánghòu empress mingdao -lrb- -rrb- empress -lrb- unknown -rrb- empress mao -lrb- ming -rrb-
 empress mao
empress mao -lrb- ming -rrb-

empress mao -lrb- died 237 -rrb- , personal name unknown , formally known as empress mingdao , 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 .
empress mao became a concubine of cao rui 's during the reign of his father , cao pi .
cao rui was the prince of pingyuan at that time .
she was not his wife or princess -- that status belonged to lady yu .
however , consort mao was a favored consort of cao rui 's .
when cao rui became emperor in 226 following his father 's death , it was widely expected that princess yu , as his wife , would be created empress .
however , cao rui created consort mao empress instead in 227 .
even though her family was of low birth , her father mao jia -lrb- 毛嘉 -rrb- , who was a carpenter , and brother mao zeng -lrb- 毛曾 -rrb- were promoted to honored posts , and mao jia was created a marquess .
when cao rui became aware that the aristocratic families looked down at his father-in-law , he promoted mao jia further and ordered all important officials to attend feasts at the mao residence .
however , as the years went by , empress mao began to lose cao rui 's favor .
by 237 , consort guo had replaced her as cao rui 's favorite .
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 , and killed a number of his attendants whom he suspected of leaking the news to empress mao , and , inexplicably , ordered empress mao to commit suicide , even though she was still buried with honors due an empress , and her family remained honored .
