Perhaps no legend of a dictator inspires the imagination of pop culture more than that of Vlad the Grand Duke of Wallachia, Vlad dracula. Vlad III is the prototype of the famous vampire legend "Count Dracula", who has the nickname "Piercer" because he likes to use wooden spears to penetrate people's bodies to execute people, and it is said that he killed 100,000 people through this means in his lifetime. The use of puncture torture caused intense suffering, and was considered a notoriously cruel practice even by the standards of late medieval warfare, which Vlad III often used haphazardly. When this torture is carried out, a sharpened wooden stake is used to pass through the victim's anus through their mouth, and the victim will die slowly and painfully for several hours.
Vlad Dracula (1428 – 1476)
Vlad III was known for falling into madness and sadistic vices during his reign, and his childhood was filled with instability, political strife, war, and atrocities. In the last weeks of 1431, Vlad was born in the Romanian fortress of Sigsola, where his father Vlad II was the commander of the Wallachian army before the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund (1368-1437) bestowed him the honor of being a member of the Dragon Knights. The Dragon Knights, a secret order of brothers, were established to protect the interests of the Roman Catholic Church, including protecting Eastern Europe from the Ottoman army and its religious practices. Vlad II earned him the dubious honor of being known as "Dragon Dracul" as a member of the "Dragon Order of the Dragon", and his son Vlad III later adopted the name "dracula" (meaning son of the dragon).
Wallachia is located in present-day Romania, when it was still nominally part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Soon after Vlad II became a member of the Order of the Dragons, the Ottoman army marched to Romania with the intention of competing with the Kingdom of Hungary for Wallachia. Vlad II oscillated between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, first attaching himself to the Kingdom of Hungary and then to the Ottoman Empire. His political twist upset all those involved, and his two young sons, Vlad III and Radu (later known as the American Man Radu), were taken captive by the Ottoman Sultan Murad II and taken hostage to force Vlad II to keep his promise. But Vlad II did not keep his promise.
Map of Wallachia
Life for Vlad III and Laddu was very precarious, forgotten and unattended, and the two boys were often locked up in the dungeon. They were ill-treated and even tortured. Vlad III's morbid obsession with torture also began to manifest.
In 1447, Vlad II was assassinated and the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II appointed Vlad iii as Grand Duke of Wallachia. Shortly thereafter, Hungarian troops invaded Wallachia, and in 1451 Vlad returned home to ally with the Hungarians. In 1456, Vlad III began to rule in Wallachia, and Vlad Tepesh ("Tepesh" means "piercing prince" in Romanian) came into being.
"Puncture" Vlad Dracula
Vlad Dracula's first act as ruler was to avenge his father's murder by hosting a banquet for the nobles of Wallachia and then arresting all the nobles who attended at the banquet. On Easter Sunday in 1459, he ordered the stabbing of the elderly members of each feudal noble family and forced the young nobles to march more than 50 miles non-stop from the capital to the town of Bonari. Those who survived the march were forced to build Vlad Dracula Castle.
When Vlad Dracula ruled Wallachia, he was known for his cruel methods of punishment. Vlad III's punishment of people was very subjective, and many times there was no justification for punishment. He ordered the torture and killing of the enemy and subjects in the most horrific and inhumane ways imaginable, including skinning, hanging, beheading, strangulation, dismemberment, blindness, crucifixion, boiling, burial alive, and roasting.
Vlad Dracula did a particularly cruel thing. The Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II threatened to occupy Wallachia if Vlad did not agree to the annual tribute. Vlad refused to pay tribute and prepared for the invasion of the Ottoman Empire. He was unable to defeat the Ottoman army, but adopted a strategy of luring the Ottoman army into Wallachia. He poisoned people in wells and burned villages along the way. When Mehmed II and the Ottoman army approached the outskirts of the Wallachian capital, they found about twenty thousand pierced bodies within a two-mile radius. Seeing such a brutal scene, the Ottoman army withdrew.
Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II
Vlad Dracula was cruel to his enemies, as well as to his subjects. There is a story that Vlad had the children pierced the mother's chest. Another story tells of this: Vlad invited the poor people of Wallachia to a banquet in a huge hall. The crowd was well fed and drunk, and Vlad asked his subjects who would like to be carefree and never go hungry again... Never have trouble, never suffer.... When the crowd unanimously agreed to say yes, Vlad promised to make their dreams come true. Then he got up and told the soldiers to seal the hall and set fire to the subjects.
In 1476, during a battle with the Ottoman army in Bucharest, Vlad Dracula the "Piercer" was killed by the enemy. His head was exhibited in Constantinople as a trophy. The rest of his body was buried in a monastery in Snagov.
At the end of the 19th century, the British novelist Bram Stoke wrote a novel about the Vampire Earl, and when he learned the story of Vlad Dracula the "Piercer", he gave the vampire Earl the name Dracula in the novel. Bram Stoker's novel Dracula caused a sensation, followed by countless books, film and television dramas based on dracula the vampire, making the name "Dracula" synonymous with vampires.