Vlad Dracula's tyranny was such that none dared break any laws in his
land, for fear of being punished or killed. He even had his
mistress disemboweled publicly for having lied about being pregnant
with his child. Vlad enjoyed torturing and killing women, often
mutilating their breasts and sexual organs in the process. He is
even rumored to have forced mothers to eat their own babies. In
order to impress visiting dignitaries with the efficiency of his
methods at promoting order, he had a gold cup placed on display in the
center of central square of Tirgoviste, unguarded from any thief that
would fancy stealing it during the night. The cup remained, as
no one would have been so foolish as to risk impalement for being
caught stealing.Impalement was a particularly horrible way to die,
Victims were either impaled from the anus or in the case of women, the
vagina, but rarely from the mouth, as this usually meant a quicker
death. The impaled would then be hoisted up, their own weight
dragging them down upon the thick stakes, the process sometimes taking
several hours. Vlad Dracula was only referred to as the Impaler
sometime after his death, a "title" he would have probably liked to
have held during his six year reign, for the number of those who
suffered this cruel fate at his hands may number well into the
hundreds of thousands.
Vlad may have been a fearsome conqueror, but he was not infallible.
In 1461, he took on the Turks from the Danube River Valley, but
ultimately failed to subdue them, outnumbered by Sultan Mehmed II's
army. Determined to kill the Sultan, Vlad Dracula staged a
nightly raid on his settlement, but he attacked the wrong tent,
leaving the Sultan enraged, and vowing revenge. He ordered his
men to invade Wallachia, forcing Dracula's army to retreat towards
Tirgoviste. Not wanting to leave anything for the Sultan and his
army, Vlad destroyed his Kingdom village by village, burning them to
the ground, and poisoning their wells. Furthermore, when the
Sultan arrived at Wallachia, he was shocked by finding a virtual
forest of the impaled, thousands of dead Turkish prisoners whose
bodies were slowly decomposing in the sun, the stench of it all
permeating the air.
Vlad's time-tested scare tactics had a profound effect on the tired
and hungry Sultan and his army. He abandoned the campaign, but
he would later retaliate by sending Vlad Dracula's own brother to pick
up where he left off. Radu and his men pursued Vlad to Poenari
Castle on the Arges river. Dracula's wife, fearful of being
captured by the Turks, jumped to her death from one of the battlement
towers. Dracula himself fled through a secret passageway, which he
used to get to the mountains. Seeking refuge in Transylvania,
Vlad met with King Matthias Corvinus, but the latter had heard of
Vlad's wicked ways, and had him imprisoned at Visegrad, the Hungarian
capital.
Eventually, Vlad Dracula was allowed to come and go as he pleased,
since there had been no definite terms for his imprisonment, and so
long as he would report to King Matthias on a regular basis. He
was also given his own dwellings in the palace, far from the musty
dungeons. But Vlad continued to secretly indulge his hunger
for blood, and occasionally, one would find small animals such as
rats, cats, and even insects, impaled on sticks. But Vlad had
managed to gain the King's confidence, and he was often a guest at the
various banquets and social functions at the palace. He even got
married to the King's cousin, Countess Ilona Szilagy, with whom he had
two children.
   
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