You were in the place where mysteries and the missing meet. We're conspiracies lurk
around every corner. Welcome to the deep dark Truth. Welcome back to the
deep dark Truth. I'm Mikey, and I'm though so. A few of
you may have listened to the Blood series back in October of last year,
where we covered part one in part two on Elizabeth Bath three, the Hungarian
Countess and the Vampire Rapist. So now we are on two. Part three,
our third contender in the Blood series takes us back to the fourteen hundreds.
Tales and published books would describe his cruel acts and become bestsellers in European
territories where Germanic language was spoken. In Russian histories of his acts, punishments
and cruel regime would be adopted and hold similar views by most Romanian historians.
Bram Stoker would create a literary vampire named after him, which still to this
day is a how whole name all over the globe, appears in kids TV
shows and has a serial named after him. Today, we shall visit the
life and story of Vladian Paler or vlad the Third. You know him,
you love him? Do we love him? We clearly do. As we
just demonstrated, we have cereal because of it. That did sounds a very
fan girly, like, oh my god, So get this. Dracula is
named after him, He has a cereal. It's a big fucking deal.
Sesame Street. The count one bat, two bat, three bats an absolute
legend. All right. So Vlad the third commonly known as Vladim Paler or
Vlad Dracula to this day, he's still considered a national hero to Romania as
hero. Yeah, yeah, we do love him. Yeah, it just
depends on where you want to go with this. It's crazy. So he
was a videoed of Wallashia three times between fourteen forty eight and fourteen seventy seven.
Can you break down what that means? So Wallashia basically discussion like real
quick, the Southern Carpathian Mountains and the Danube Rivers where we're talking about,
which was Wallashia in thirteen thirty and Moldavia and then later Romania. So this
is all you know present day Romania, but obviously much earlier before so long
family lines of like Basarab dynasty and Draculesti, which I'm sure you could guess
is his family bloodline. Only like seven to eight different family names appear over
like five hundred years of ruling in this region. It's kind of crazy,
like it's just handed down and handed down and handed down. So background.
His father was named Vlad Drakul or Vlad the Second and was ruler of Wallashia
in fourteen thirty six. Murcia was his eldest brother, who instantly enough,
was not named Vlad the third. I found that bizarre, isn't it.
Usually the oldest is named after and Radu was his youngest brother. The two
youngest brothers were held hostage in the Ottoman Empire in fourteen forty two in order
to secure their father's loyalty to the crown. Classic, yeah, classic in
this time was not crazy, was not thought of harshly. They took care
of the children, but they were still a hostage. A hungry governor would
invade in fourteen forty seven, killing both Mercia and Vlad the Second. He
would replace Vlad with his second cousin, Vladislav the Second. It's like I
made up a name if I wanted a fake Romanian name at the time.
Yeah, yeah, So his second cousin, Vladislav the second as the new
videod. It's a lot, I know. So right off the bat father
and older brother gets murdered. Classic this Hungarian governor Hunyadi would invade the Ottomans
in fourteen forty eight with Vladislav by his side. Hungary and the Turks were
obviously on different sides of things, and there was this Romanian aspect. There's
just so much going on from all different angles. Game of Thrones, if
you will. During this time, Gladwood disappear and is now confirmed by historians,
but only recently, like twenty eighteen, did they confirm that he was
imprisoned in Castle Corvin by Hunyatti. So he was in prison for quite a
long time, and most didn't know that because it was new and they newly
discover newly, like completely like stamped in stone where he was at, because
it was kind of a mystery and debated what year did his rain start?
Three different times he was. The answer is it's complicated, So it was
from a time period of fourteen forty eight to fourteen seventy seven. I just
really like to put things in conceptual time periods that people understand. The Renaissance
erastart in fourteen fifty three. So this is the beginning of the Renaissance.
This is a lot of bloodline, a lot of houses. This is game
of thrones, basically in the center of the world where the most population was.
It was reported that Relationshichange Ladislav, the new ruler, and Hunyatti,
the Hungarian governor, deteriorated. Vlad obviously took opportunity of this. In fourteen
fifty six he would be set free. So he was in jail for eight
years and invade with the support of the Hungarian Hunyati. Glad is freed and
Vlad invades with the help of the guy who freed him, his second cousin.
Of course, they are to take back his rightful seat and Hungary helps
them correct with the support of Hungary. Okay, in that battle, Vadislav
was killed. Oh no, not Ladislav. He's my favorite character. That's
far Remember what happened with Zadoc just was said once and never mentioned again,
so don't so he's put back onto the seat of power. At this time
there was Wallashian boyers is what they were called, and they held a lot
of political power in the region. So they were basically a mix of Wallashian
Anne Moldavian bloodlines, prominent blood lines that weren't on the throne but basically held
a lot of political power and seat and riches, obviously an influence. This
is where vlad Can shows his sneaky trickery side of things. As part of
this revenge, he held an Easter party in Targo Vista in fourteen fifty seven,
and that's basically like the capital fortress, stronghold of his empire per se,
not very big, but still an empire. He would invite all the
Wallashian boyers and citizens of Wallashia to this huge feast and dining for Easter.
Oh, this feels like the Red Wedding. Already you kept saying game a
throne, and now the red Wedding is just I can hear the reins of
Castimir. They're playing in my head right now through this whole seat. I'm
painting a word picture, all right. He would invite all the Wallashy emboyers
and citizens, and so he would then he is quoted to speak of how
many princes there has been in this empire, in this regime over the years,
and would blame the boyers for their copious amounts of rulers that they've had,
and then kind of nonchalantly like you know what I mean, like basically
saying it, but not saying it the shade of the fourteen hundreds, they
continue to then, you know, feast in the fine you know, if
everyone's dressed to the nines, the biggest feast ever easter. He just became,
you know whatever. And then yeah, as soon as they were done
with their plates, oh dear, the Rains of Castomir is playing. All
right. So soon as they're done eating their dinner and they're full, they're
completely circled by all of lads of men. Why didn't he just poison them?
They were all eating dinner together, he tells, that's not how he
does it. Just wait, do you just wait? MESSI this is a
messy bitch, and I can't respect it. It's not messy. He wanted
them to be full and satisfied before he completely so they encircle them, but
not just them, their wives and children as well. They were led outside
the castle basically to a massive impaling, though women and the men were impaled
before, like in front of their able bodied children, and then the children
were manacled and marched northward, and it was if they were abled, because
if they were not abled, they were impaled. So that's why the imagine
this, he's doing this in front of the entire everyone, Well they're all
dead now, he's not doing it in front of anyone. Now, well,
if anyone wants to come for him and his new throne, they ain't
doing it. Not with that display like that is the display of instilling fear.
People are going to find out about it later. But the reason he
doesn't poison the food, and my opinion is because the kids would have eaten
them and he eating the food, and he obviously wants them for his armies.
So we can't just poison everyone because that's not advantageous enough. He needs
to get something else out of it too. Then that's what we're talking about
here. Is this like a hundred or like five, because it's also just
I want to eat the tasty food and not poison myself. From what I
understand, there was quite a bit of Wallashia boyers. I mean it is
two different genetic family bloodlines that have been in this region. Like it was
not yeah, well well about children, like they were advils. So I
just assumed that there'd be a fuck ton of kids. There is some background
that most people don't know that kind of sheds it in a different light.
Not saying it's justified in any way, shape or form or he was just
but the Boyers were directly to blame for the invasion, and the direct be
like dethroning and beheading of his father and brother just because we started ship.
So it was it was it was revenge, Yeah, revenge, So that
was part of it. And also I guess he's like, I'll get it.
I'll impale them and get a cool nicked name out of it and no
one will fuck with me ever again, because nobody's gonna fuck with some dude
named the Impaler. And the weird thing is that drack cool is you know
it means dragon in the language in this time that you know that it was.
So it was basically if anyone, if anyone messes with us dragons,
they're going to regret it. His father was part of some dragon clan house
clan that he got into. You have to get into some way, though
I don't know. It was all of the UK, everyone over there,
and yet no one had dragons. So not only did it, you know
there was revenge to it, but it was also military genius at the time,
because this would strengthen his position, his political power, his influence in
the entire region, and also gain access to Pinari Castle, which would later
become what is known as Dracula's Castle in real life. Look, let's streamline
this a hierarchy of power. He basically took all of their fortresses, their
house, their money, they're everything. It raced them completely and took all
their wealth and all their fortresses and all their castles. It was very efficient.
I support the efficiency. Yeah, but it's it's Game of Thrones.
You weren't kidding, Yeah, it's Game of Thrones. It's either because this
is so far removed in the past, we are treating this as if it
was a Game of Thrones episode. I don't think that we necessarily should be.
But if if somebody did that and Game of Thrones, you would be
like, yeah, that was pretty badass, Like that was that was good.
He took all their shit. And this is like, in this particular
instance, the royal pupil killing the semi royal people you know, who have
all gotten many A peasant killed the thousands of thousands of peasants stand for these
guys, so I'm fine with these specific people, you know. Around this
time period and shortly after during he would also come into conflict with the Transylvanian
Saxons at the time, who were supporting Dan and basarab Layota, which were
Vladislav's brothers. So is his other cousins. His other cousin, doctor Franknfurter,
the sweet transat run Transylvania. They were gaining support from the Transylvanian Saxons
to maybe take back their seed and avenge their brother, their brother, you
know, and whatever. So as you do, he would invade them,
loot and plunder the Saxon villages, capturing the people and marching them to Wallashia.
See see now we're on the villagers and the generic people. This is
where they're not. It's not a school. So they marched them all the
way back to Wallashia and then I don't know if you guessed it, massive
and paling classic flat back on his ship. Get the girl a prize like
the way that you if you could have all just seen Mikey and this weird
finger gun thing he did, I know, but I could see it in
your face. Don't appropriate my finger guns. Later in this area around fourteen
sixty, like piece between the Wallasheets and the Saxons obviously achieved. There's still
I wouldn't call the word piece, but okay, a tentative cold war between
them. Yeah. I think he was just trying to get the supporters out
and I didn't want to like completely slaughter them. But I don't know who
knows what he was thinking. The Ottoman Sultan, Mahmed the Second, which
is kind of where his notoriety comes from and all this, he would order
Glad to pay him homage to him personally and to the empire, ordered and
decreed it that he needed to pay homage to him. I don't know what
happens, but I'm guessing it's not going to go well for that guy just
shot in the dark. Yeah. At this time, the Ottoman Empire was
the largest empire on the planet. It was huge, and they will continue
to be a powerhouse. Don't count out the Ottoman Empire to World War One.
Don't count Lad out just yet. So the Sultan would send two envoys
as a bait, basically to ambush, and Vlad got winto this and instead
ambush the envoys and one of the first historic use of handguns. What wait
a second, when we're guns invented? So was it like I'm guessing it
was like a tiny, muskety type of situation. I don't know what type
of capacity a handgun is described as or what, but that's what I have
found. He impaled them and then disguised himself and his men in the Turkish
uniforms hand cannon, the special weapon of Ladian Paler. The hand cannon is
is pretty large. It looks like it's like three and a half feet perhaps,
Oh it's huge. Yeah, she's big. So they ambushed the envoy
with that pale They're very tiny bulletin pale. Oh Like when I say in
pale, I mean he killed them. He always impales them on pikes leaves
them there. Oh glad laugh track. He then moved to the nearest fortress
under the Ottoman Empire and ordered the gates to be open because he's they're all
in Turkish uniforms, so they ordered the gates to be opened by the men,
and they thought they were so they opened the gates. He would slaughter
the defense and pale more people and destroy the fortress completely. Crazy, crazier,
So okay, in fourteen sixty two, he would go on to split
his troops Glad the Impaler and invade neighboring Bulgaria. Is if he didn't have
enough going on with the Transylvanian Saxons and within his own empire and now the
Ottoman Empire, he is gonna go invade Bulgaria. Oh, just take a
nap. He rounds up Turks, he rounds up Turkish supporters, he captures
them, and he impales them. Okay, so what are his motives at
this point? I understood the motives with his like his dad and his brother.
Do you know what royalty is? But it doesn't seem like he's doing
anything fun, you know what I mean? Like it seems like you would
conquer things to have fun and like hold chord and have fancy parties. I
think it was the point of which he achieves something and got his revenge and
got the seat of power, and then here comes the largest empire in the
world to be like, to send you an order to basically bow to me,
that's your chance to be like, Oh well, if he's ordering me
to bow to him, he's scared of me. Yeah, this is the
one opportunity that we can take out a giant empire. Point was, I
don't think he succeeds on that front. And I'm guessing he's like eating well
and having a lot of sex in between all the staff. Yeah, but
like, why are we never talking about that stuff because a lot of that
is the rape too. Why do you got to bring me down? Chip?
God? This game at their owns. It's not a cheerful game.
Win or you die. Yeah, this is basically like fourteen hundred war,
but with a lot of impaling. He would say that he killed over twenty
three thousand his dudes killed. I don't think he did all that impaling.
That was his guards. That was just what he brought back to Wallashia and
impaled. That's not counting those that were burned in their own homes. A
force of eighteen thousand, led by the Sultan's Grand Vizier would be routed and
leaving only eight thousand to escape the battle. Well. Of course, this
outraged Mahmed and at this point Lad's luck is running out. There are many
different accounts by many different historians in which the size of the army that may
Amed personally led to Wallashia. But Maymed requested about one hundred and fifty thousand
men from all over the empire just as front these people. What he received
was around three hundred to four hundred thousand men. Fuck. This is not
counting the naval force that would go with them. Naturally, Vlad would begin
to worry at this time, I could only appeal so much. Maybe was
getting a little scared and frightened. He would seek out the King of Hungary
for aid. Oh, who was a scared little bit? Now when none
came, Bro, you have a bad habit of impaling. I don't really
want to get involved. Vlad conscripted women, enabled children to fight for him.
Oh, here we go again. Good for him for seeing the women
could fight. Here we go, equal opportunity. Murderer in total, historians
and you have found that he amassed an army about the tenth of the size
of the Ottoman impressive at the time, very impressive, but I mean how
many were children. So upon the day that the empire would strike um,
he would think of a crafty way to scare the Sultan back to his empire.
He began by poisoning wells and destroying anything of use and even sent infected
men with the plague into their troops to spread the highly infectious disease at the
time, so like this little by little in his region before you know,
they were coming to his fortress in castle, he would do everything he could
to sabotage them and poison them and infect them. It's actually wild how far
back in history biological warfare goes, like weaponizing smallpox and the plague and shit,
it's actually nutty, especially when you think about the fact that they didn't
have a way to not catch these community couple diseases. They're right, yeah,
bringing smallpox blankets or whatever, but their soldiers are the ones handling whatever
material in the way that they're weaponizing it totally. Obviously, the still the
empire still, you know, trudged on and went on. The first night
that they camped outside, though, would turn the tides against this massive army.
Vlad and his men would sneak in on the mid troops in the middle
of the night, slaughtering all that they could. Vlad even tried to assassinate
the Sultan personally, but missed and hit the Grand Vizier's tent dangerous career Grand
viziering it's a three and a half hand cannon in the middle of the fucking
night. Of course you're hitting the tent nights to it. It's a little
cloudy, but pretty much think that the Empire fought back or woke up to
seven degree, or they retreated in some ways they strike, they did fashion.
I think after he missed, he probably retreated back. The Empire continue
to march on, obviously to the fortified citadel. At this point, they're
just camped outside. What they would be shocked to fine though, is that
the gates were wide open. What they would stumble upon would be called as
the Forest of the Impaled. Basically, he had strung up around twenty thousand
or more enemy soldiers of the Sultan's impaled and put on decoration. Just a
graveyard, not the electric forest. Not good, not electric. This guy
was smart and fucking crafty. I mean, I'm just have to give it
to him. I mean, no accounts have been documented to out like how
the Sultan reacted or what became of it, but he definitely left Wallashia the
next day at sunrise. He's like, this is not worth the effort.
I'm going to go back to being the biggest Empire on Earth. So Stephen
the third of Old Davy at this time would flee to Chilla, and so
would Vlad, and and he would leave about six thousand of his troops to
try to hinder the march of the Saltan's army, but the Ottomans ended up
defeating the Wallashians. So when the main Ottoman army left Wallashia, Vlad's brother
Radu was with him and on the side No, his youngest brother, Radu
was basically in with the Ottomans. So at this point it had been I'm
sure been a deal of like, as soon as we overthrow, you can
have the seat. So Radu sent messages to the Wallashians reminding that the Saltan
could again invade their country that they need he needed to give up his seat.
Basically, Vlad defeated Radu and his Ottoman allies in two battles during the
following months, but more and more Wallashians would desert and go to Radu basically
at this time, and he would withdraw into the Carpathian Mountains and hope that
Matthias Corvinus, the King of Hungary, would help him get his throne back.
Basically, he was wrong. He did not want to rage war with
the Ottoman Empire. He wanted to keep the peace, and captured Lad and
threw him in prison. Lad would settle in a house and pass after being
released. So basically he would go into prison for fourteen years, starting in
the city of Belgrade, but then was transferred to Visigrad. And then in
fourteen seventy five, Stephen the third of Moldavia would go and send envoys to
the King asking him to send Lad Wallashia against Bassara Blayota. They must have
been really worried about him being a martyr, because I just can't see any
other reason that would be politically advantageous for them to keep him alive. It's
about throw in seat because his brother didn't take the throne one of the brothers
of Vladislav though, Okay, so a lot goes on, and basically he
gets back onto the throne through Hungarian support, through Moldavian support, through Wallashian
support, little by little, naturally, like it is so bizarre, and
a lot going on back on that iron throne. And then that's when Basarabiliotta
returns to Wallashi with Ottoman support and vlad is killed in battle. What's the
lifespan of a soldier at that time that he's actively fighting like this, he
would think that he would die young as fuck, and it'd be like,
yeah, he did all these things, he conquered all these things, but
yeah, he did that over the course of a few years. But then
he ends up locked up and he comes out and is like, I'm still
young and spry and can just do war. Fourteen thirty one, so he
was forty six, Still forty six to be fighting battles at forty six,
the lifespan of kings was probably decent. The lifespan of a soldier because he
was actively fighting has to be negligible. I doubt he was actively fighting in
all these battles. I'm thinking, you know, certainly when there's assaulted you
kind of sounds like he really liked and paling people though, so I feel
like he had to be at a lot of them. But again, I
want to know how many he personally impaled versus ordered and paled like. I
don't think he lined them all up. At that first royal, the Red
Wedding, it was like and I stap you, and I stap you,
and I stap you. Okay, whence the vampireism start? So he died
finally he's a vampire. Now, it's not really, it's that it's the
last name that is tied to what bram Stoker creates. He just takes the
name because it's cool. Fair enough, he was called vlad Drakhool, you
know what I mean. He wasn't even called Dracula. It's just over time
because of the amount of bloodshab and the exaggerations and everything else that have going
over time, is that he was just obsessed with blood and death, and
obviously fighting and killing and blood and death. And I paling people having written
a nano or two, I too have corrupted a name just because it sounded
cool. So do we hate Vladim Paler or do we like it Vladim Paler?
Or do we respect Vladidan Paler? Burn in hell? But he's the
worst, right, But he's clever, and I do respect the cleverness and
how smart he was. But I think we can say that about a lot
of different intelligence is in a sign of goodness. And the tie really to
this to him to Dracula, as him being immortal and dodging death. He
should have been murdered when he was a child. He was imprisoned three or
four times, he sat on a throne three or four times. He's been
in battle thousands of times. He's ran away like he's traveled through mountains to
get to a different city and king, and I mean he definitely escaped death.
What I thought you were going to say, like what I thought this
would be the evolution of a Dracula would be he dodged death so many times
that people couldn't believe that he was actually dead because he had survived these ridiculous
odds. Oh my god, have you heard about that? He's on a
cereal. That's a little bit, a little that's all right. So that
is part three of our blood series. Let me know if I miss something
interesting or I misspoke on something, as we do here at the Deep Doctor
ever to Google translates say a word a million times and then it's still just
doesn't sound right, just falls into what it is until next time. I'm
MO and I'm Mikey. Don't impale people. You just listen to the Deep
Dark Truth podcast. See you next time, and remember your local cryptids want
to meet you.