If anyone knows how to hand out brutal punishments, it was Vlad. The Impaler was the nickname given to him because of his signature rampages during war. The idea was to simply create fear so that people would not want to rise against him. He literally impaled thousands of bodies on ten feet high poles, regardless of whether they were dead or alive, to send a message along the lines of "don't mess with me." His aim was to cause more psychological torture than anything else as he would laugh and eat his meals whilst he made his enemies watch their fellow comrades get impaled and hear their screams. Obviously, he would leave the bodies of the defeated army there to rot. Vlad may have been the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula too - emphasis on the 'may' there - as his name translates as the Son of the Dragon and he apparently used to drink the blood of his victims in war.
