Background
Cao Jie was born in 196. She was the second daughter of Cao Cao (155-220), the posthumous Emperor Wu of Wei.
Cao Jie was born in 196. She was the second daughter of Cao Cao (155-220), the posthumous Emperor Wu of Wei.
Cao Jie was presented as a concubine with her two sisters when her father Cao Cao wanted to usurp the throne. She was given the title Worthy Lady. Later she became the wife of Emperor Xian of Han.
Empress Fu, who was Empress of Emperor Xian, had long been deeply concerned at Cao Cao’s growing power and had written to her father asking help in containing him. This plot was revealed and in 214, Cao Cao had Empress Fu confined in the Drying House, where she died. The following year, Worthy Lady Cao Jie was promoted to the empress, a position she held until the Han dynasty finally collapsed in 220.
After Cao Cao died in 220, his son - and Empress Cao’s brother - Cao Pi (187-226) forced Emperor Xian to abdicate, demoting him to Duke of Shanyang. Empress Cao was demoted to Duchess of Shanyang and lived in retirement with the former emperor until his death in 234. She lived on as a widow for another twenty-six years, dying in 260.
Cao Jie remained loyal not to her father or to her brother, but to her husband, in the Confucian tradition of the “three followings” (sancong), whereby a woman’s husband is her heaven and she is obliged to belong to him.
Cao Jie was the wife of Emperor Xian of Han. She had no children. She was buried alongside her husband in Shan Tomb.
Cao Cao was a Chinese warlord and the penultimate Chancellor of the Eastern Han dynasty who rose to great power in the final years of the dynasty. As one of the central figures of the Three Kingdoms period, he laid the foundations for what was to become the state of Cao Wei and ultimately the Jin dynasty, and was posthumously honoured as "Emperor Wu of Wei".
Liu Xie , also known as Emperor Xian, was the 14th and last emperor of the Eastern Han dynasty in China. He reigned from 28 September 189 until 11 December 220.
