Transcription
Welcome, welcome to Ten O'Clock Decryption. Hello everyone, I am Air. In this episode, we will discuss the true history of the vampire Dracula together. Welcome again. It's ten o'clock again. Hello everyone, I am Air. Welcome to Ten O'Clock Decryption. Before starting a new episode, I first want to apologize to everyone. The episode about the US military officer's secret UAP wreckage recovery program was globally banned due to copyright issues. The reason was that I used his video, but his videos are all exclusive, so I couldn't find this information anywhere else. So I don't know what to do. So I was wondering if a membership system could solve these problems. So I am still considering it. Some seniors also told me that occultism is very popular on YouTube, and it often gets demonetized or banned. So I don't know if a membership system will solve it. Because every episode I make on YouTube has costs. My software basically requires four-digit figures every month to support it to maintain the smooth production of each episode's content. So for the future membership system, I hope everyone will give me more support. Before the membership system starts, please follow my Threads. I will post the latest UFO information and occult information worth sharing with everyone there first. After the membership system starts in the future, this content will only be visible in the member's area. So follow my Threads while it's still free. And today's content comes from an interesting experience I had in my life. One time, I was driving a Romanian person. He suddenly started talking to me. He asked how much I knew about Romania. He said Romania is most famous for vampires, right? Dracula, right? His reaction suddenly made my whole perception of Dracula change. He said Dracula is a national hero in our hearts. I thought, isn't he a super violent tyrant, a terrifying ruler? He said no. He said if Dracula, this real person, hadn't existed, Romania might not be what it is today. So in the hearts of Romanians, Dracula is a national hero. So in this episode, we will explore the legendary history of this real person together. The name Dracula is probably familiar to everyone. But you might not know that the name of this terrifying vampire actually comes from a real historical figure. This person is Vlad III. And what's more interesting is that the original meaning of the title Dracula is actually "son of the dragon." This goes back to his father, Vlad II. Let's rewind time to 15th-century Eastern Europe. The 15th-century Eastern Europe was a turbulent era. And this Prince Vlad III's father was a member of a secret Christian military organization called the Order of the Dragon. Because of this identity, his father was called Dracul. The meaning of Dracul is dragon. I asked a Romanian to teach me how to pronounce it, but due to accent issues, I couldn't learn it. So I think calling him Dracul is the closest to her pronunciation. Dracul means dragon. And his son was naturally called Drăculea. Drăculea means son of the dragon. Who would have thought that this title symbolizing honor would eventually become such a legendary protagonist in a horror story? Let me briefly introduce the historical background. The events that happened were in 15th-century Eastern Europe. At that time, 15th-century Eastern Europe was facing a crisis of survival. The powerful Ottoman Empire, like a ferocious beast, was gradually devouring the surrounding Christian nations. A large part of it, which we might have heard of in history, is Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire that stood for a thousand years, was devoured by the Ottoman Empire and had fallen. At this critical juncture, Vlad III was ruling a principality called Wallachia. This principality was like the last fortress of the Christian world at that time. Imagine such a small country facing the most powerful empire in the world at that time. What choices would such a desperate situation force a ruler to make? And Vlad III's choice ultimately imprinted his name in human minds as a bloody, violent tyrant, a figure of terrifying legends. Let's start with his birth. In the winter of 1431, in a place called Sighișoara in Transylvania. Romanian is really hard to pronounce. In this place called Sighișoara, the cry of an infant broke the silence of the castle. This cry came from the future terrifying Vlad III. But no one would have thought that this prince, born into a prominent family, would experience a dark childhood that would destroy his mind. His father, Vlad II, was a very brave warrior in the Order of the Dragon, and he was determined to train his son to be a great ruler. The young Vlad seemed to live a life of luxury in Târgoviște Castle. But who knew that he was going through an experience that, even if I described it verbally, I would find terrifying. In 1442, Vlad, only 11 years old, and his brother Radu, only 5 years old, were personally handed over to the Ottoman Empire as hostages by his father. This was not an ordinary visit but a cruel hostage exchange. This father, to secure his throne, personally handed over his two young sons to the enemy in exchange for important hostages. I am a father myself, so I find this hard to accept. Let me briefly introduce how prominent the Ottoman Empire was at that time. It was one of the most powerful empires in the world at that time. It had an army of 150,000, compared to Vlad's approximately 10,000. Their military technology was extremely advanced. Their method of invasion was to demand high tribute, force the sending of royal children as hostages, control local politics, and Islamize Christian regions. You need to understand that this might not be a big issue in Hong Kong, but in other countries, religion represents everything. So forcibly changing the religion of a place is a very serious matter. When these two princes were sent to the Ottoman Empire, they were imprisoned in a Tokat Castle, a terrifying underground labyrinth. Archaeologists discovered a secret underground chamber in this ancient castle. Let me describe the environment at that time. It was a hellish labyrinth composed of nine levels of dungeons. The deeper the prisoners went, the more cruel the treatment. In our imagination, hell has eighteen levels, and the punishment gets more severe the lower you go. It turns out there is a nine-level hell in reality. At that time, Vlad and his brother were imprisoned in this sunless, damp, and cold hell. Here, these two brothers, due to their special status, received special treatment. Every day they endured much beating and abuse, and they were forced to witness various cruel punishments firsthand. Imagine children, one eleven years old, one five years old, having to watch horrific torture scenes and processes every day. They had to witness many prisoners dying tragically in hell every day, being forced or executed. Some historical records say that this nine-level hell was filled with the screams of prisoners and the laughter of the jailers every day. Some records say that the prisoners on the lowest level, after being beaten, were all hung upside down on the stone walls to slowly lose their minds. Some were starved to death. Some were driven mad by torture. Some even began to eat the bodies of their companions. These two brothers basically received this special treatment every day, witnessing and participating in these horrific execution processes every day. These day-after-day hellish experiences completely destroyed the last shred of hope for humanity in these two children. Speaking of this, my heart is very sad. But what's even more shocking is the story between Vlad and his brother Radu. His brother, who suffered with him in Tokat Castle, had actually become a favorite of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, and it was even said that their relationship had developed beyond friendship. While Vlad was enduring inhuman torture in the dungeon, his brother Radu was living a luxurious life in the Sultan's harem. Historical records indicate that the young Radu was forced to participate in the darkest entertainment activities in the palace, gradually becoming a completely degenerate person. What does that mean? It means that perhaps Vlad would rather die than submit, while Radu obeyed Sultan Mehmed II's demands and slowly became the king's pet. I don't know if you've seen "Prison Break." There's a prisoner who has someone following him like a pet. I think that's what it means. And back then, Sultan Mehmed II's favorite game was to make these two brothers torture each other in front of everyone. I think it's really tragic. Then Vlad would rather die than submit, while Radu was willing to become the abuser. This means Vlad would rather endure not harming his brother, but his brother was willing to become the abuser. This extreme experience turned these two brothers into the most antagonistic relationship in the world. Later, his brother Radu not only led troops to hunt down his own brother but also killed all those who supported his brother with the most brutal methods. Betrayal in blood is more chilling than any punishment. It's really tragic. I am truly heartbroken to say this. When Vlad III finally regained his freedom, what awaited him was a shattered country. His father, Vlad II, and his brother Mircea had been brutally murdered by the nobles of Bucharest. From this moment on, his path of extreme rule began. His reign was not smooth sailing. He ascended the throne of Wallachia three times. Each time was full of drama. The first time was in 1448. The young Vlad ruled for only two months before being overthrown. The second time was from 1456 to 1462. This was his most glorious and terrifying period of rule. The last time was in 1476. For a short two months, he ended his life in the most tragic way, drawing a conclusion. When Vlad III returned from his imprisonment in the Ottoman Empire, he brought back not only the fire of revenge but also a ruling method that shocked the world. Under his rule, a terrifying execution method gradually spread, and this method earned him the title Vlad the Impaler. This horrific torture, the impalement, how did it work? During executions, the executioner would specifically choose blunt stakes and slowly insert them into the victim's lower body. The stake was specially treated to ensure that the victim would slowly pass through the body, finally emerging from the shoulder or mouth. The most terrifying part was that the tip of the stake was coated with preservative grease, so the victim would not die immediately. They were meant to suffer extreme pain on the stake for hours or even days, and their screams served as a reminder to those who defied Vlad's orders of the consequences. In 1462, when the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II led an army of 150,000 towards the principality of Wallachia, the sight before them made this seemingly invincible fleet truly terrified. As they advanced into Wallachia, they vaguely saw countless upright figures in the thick fog. When the fog began to dissipate, everyone was so scared they fell to the ground. From Brașov to Târgoviște, a distance of 60 kilometers, Vlad built a corridor of death. On both sides of this 60-kilometer stretch, countless stakes stood tall, each bearing a contorted corpse. This forest of human bodies contained over twenty thousand corpses, including captured Turkish soldiers, Bulgarian envoys, and even weaker civilians. The height and angle of all the corpses were meticulously calculated to force those who continued to advance to avoid them like a thicket. And when the wind blew, the stench of the decaying corpses spread everywhere, accompanied by the clanging of chains and bones. Even seasoned veterans, these Ottoman veterans, were so scared their legs turned to jelly upon seeing this scene. A Turkish soldier wrote in his diary, "Our soldiers started vomiting when they saw it. Some knelt down to pray. Even His Majesty Sultan Mehmed II showed a look of shock for the first time." This scene even shocked the experienced Sultan, who ordered a retreat. And on the night of June 17, 1462, something happened that terrified the entire Ottoman Empire. While the Turkish army was sleeping soundly and safely in their camp, Vlad led ten thousand elite soldiers, disguised in Turkish uniforms, into their camp. It was like Metal Gear, wearing their clothes and pretending to be infiltrators. Vlad's objective was clear: they were not there to fight but to instill fear. Throughout the night, the camp was filled with screams and flames. Ottoman soldiers were throat-slashed, bled, and burned alive in their sleep. The most terrifying part was that Vlad ordered a mark to be left on each Ottoman soldier killed. So when the sun rose the next morning, these Ottoman survivors saw corpses strewn everywhere. This was Vlad's silent warning to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. Vlad's atrocities were not only directed at foreign enemies. Under his rule, death was omnipresent in Wallachia. One incident was when he invited all the beggars and vagrants on the street to the castle for a feast. When these poor people were full and satisfied, they were grateful, thinking, "How can our country's ruler treat us like this?" But at this moment, Vlad sealed off the entire banquet hall and set it on fire. He coldly said, "I want my country to be free from poverty, so these poor people must endure this." Additionally, some Ottoman envoys came to the principality of Wallachia to handle diplomatic policies. Because Vlad demanded they remove their turbans to pay homage, and the Ottoman envoys, being Muslims, could not remove their turbans due to their religion. Vlad then nailed their turbans to their heads and forced these Ottoman envoys to dig a well under the scorching sun with their bare hands. So they basically starved and died of heatstroke one by one. He also invented many unimaginable tortures, such as locking prisoners in specially made cages for rats to slowly eat their bodies. Some had their limbs cut off and attached to animal bodies. Some records also mention that Vlad enjoyed having lunch during executions, eating delicious food while watching people suffer. When a nearby guard couldn't help but cover his nose due to the stench of the corpses, Vlad immediately ordered him to be impaled on a tall stake, sarcastically saying, "I'll put you higher now, so you won't smell the stench." And what's heartbreaking is the fate of his first wife. Towards the end of his reign, when the Ottoman army surrounded the castle, his first wife, to avoid falling into the enemy's hands and being humiliated, jumped from the high tower of Poenari Citadel. Her last words were, "I would rather my body be eroded by the river than fall into the hands of the enemy." Vlad's extreme rule quickly spread throughout Europe. Because of these extreme actions, many of his deeds were recorded and became perfect reference material for the vampire we know today. But seriously, I think the reality is much more terrifying than the fictional description of vampires. In the 15th century, printing had just been invented, so Vlad III's terrifying stories spread throughout Europe at an unprecedented speed. In every alley, in every market, people were discussing the bloodthirsty ruler from the East. There were also German printed materials with illustrations of Vlad dining on corpses and imagined drawings of horrific torture. These events, recorded and circulated for centuries, eventually fell into the eyes of an Irish writer. In 1890, a writer named Bram Stoker, while browsing in the Whitby Library in London, accidentally came across a history book about Vlad III. When he read the chilling descriptions of executions, he was deeply shocked, especially the accounts of Vlad dining on piles of corpses and collecting the blood of his enemies. This planted the seed for his creation. Bram Stoker spent seven years researching historical documents about Vlad, including German horror pamphlets, Hungarian folklore, and even Eastern European vampire legends, day and night. He gradually realized that this historical figure, who was both a hero and a tyrant, was an excellent subject for his creation. So in 1897, seven years later, Bram Stoker completed his masterpiece, Dracula. This novel completely changed humanity's imagination of vampires. In his writing, Dracula was no longer a simple monster but a very complex character. He was a Transylvanian nobleman with extraordinary intelligence and charm, carrying an inescapable curse. Stoker also cleverly integrated historical elements of Vlad into the story, such as the location of Dracula's castle, his obsession with blood, and his desire for eternal life. These all alluded to the desires or inner imaginings of the real Vlad III. By the way, interestingly, Bram Stoker never visited Romania, nor did he go to the place he described as Dracula's castle. All his sources and inspiration came from the library in London. I quite admire this author; relying on these references, he was able to create this eternal literary figure. The publication of Dracula triggered a cultural craze. In 1922, a German director, F. W. Murnau, filmed the first vampire movie, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. Although it couldn't directly use the name Dracula due to copyright issues, the image of the protagonist in the film deeply evoked the essence of Vlad. In 1931, a Hungarian actor, Bela Lugosi, in the Hollywood version of the Dracula film, created a new image: a noble vampire in a tuxedo, elegant in demeanor. This image completely changed people's perception of vampires, including us. I believe people of our generation, when they think of vampires, think of tuxedo-wearing nobles, elegant demonic figures. So the styling and performance method of this Hungarian actor laid a great foundation for countless subsequent vampire works. Since then, vampire culture has developed vigorously worldwide. Hollywood has produced over 200 vampire films to date. Each era has given vampires different appearances. For example, the 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula tells the story of Vlad becoming a vampire because his wife died, in order to resurrect her, leading to a romantic story of eternal life for true love. And in 1994, a classic vampire film, Interview with the Vampire, starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and Christian Slater, allowed the audience to feel their loneliness and pain through the vampire's perspective for the first time. A more recent classic is the 2008 film The Twilight Saga, which completely subverted tradition. It tells the story of a human, a modern woman, falling in love with a vampire, and the vampire, to protect her from the vampire family, triggers a series of stories, becoming a teenage romantic idol film. Which vampire movie appeals to you? Welcome to leave a comment and tell me. I also want to know what movies you have watched. These changes have completely influenced popular culture. Vampires are no longer just elements of horror films but have entered people's daily lives. For example, Gothic style, vampire-themed parties, descriptions of fangs, and Dracula-themed tours have appeared. And in the literary field, vampire novels have formed a very specialized genre. I think this is great. Modern people are beginning to explore more humanistic issues through vampire stories, such as what is eternal life, what is the price of eternal life, what does blood truly represent in the human world, and how is the boundary between good and evil defined? Let's return to Vlad. I think to understand why Vlad III became so brutal, we must go back to the experience in the dark dungeons of Tokat Castle. Imagine an 11-year-old child at a critical stage of personality formation, witnessing the darkest side of human nature every day. In addition to this physical pain, there was also the transformation of his brother Radu. His own flesh and blood, betrayed by his father and sent to an enemy country as a hostage, suffering together. His five-year-old brother gradually became another person in the Ottoman court. I think this psychological trauma completely turned him into someone with demonic behavior. If you watch shows like "Criminal Minds" or "Forensic Files" that discuss criminal cases, many serious criminals have experienced very painful pasts, especially in childhood, which made them so terrible. Perhaps they experienced the ugliest side of human nature: betrayal, weakness, cruelty, and finally felt that such extreme terror was necessary to rule the people. So when he became a ruler, he carried out many horrifying executions. And perhaps in his mind, these were normal, as they might reflect the psychological impact of the terrifying scenes he witnessed. Some researchers describe this as Vlad replicating what he saw and heard in the dungeon. Were the impaled corpses his way of showing the world that he had transformed from a victim to an abuser? Even more ironically, he, who was a tortured victim in the dungeon back then, eventually became more brutal than his tormentors. This psychological distortion is a reflection of the deepest tragedy of human nature. To this day, at Poenari Citadel, the ruins we see now, we can still feel the tension of that era. Imagine how many people suffered brutal treatment here. How much negative energy, how many terrible things happened. And this fortress built on the cliff top, if you want to go there, you can actually go. It requires climbing 1480 steps to reach it. This path was a strategic location chosen by Vlad to resist strong enemies. Imagine if you had to climb 1480 steps, and on both sides of these 1480 steps were filled with stakes and corpses. Imagine if you could climb all 1480 steps. But as I said at the beginning, in my conversation with the Romanian, for them, Vlad is a hero who defended the country, even if he had to bear the stigma. His extremely brutal methods successfully deterred the invasion of the Ottoman Empire. Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror who captured Constantinople, a very powerful place that was conquered by Sultan Mehmed II. If you read history, you know that this powerful conqueror was deterred by Vlad's brutal methods. Of course, at the same time, in our world, when we comment on this matter, we feel that his atrocities indeed crossed the bottom line of humanity. Is it acceptable to use extreme methods to defend one's country and faith? When facing the crisis of national annihilation, does this violence become a necessary evil? We will discuss this further in the comment section. Alright, this episode ends here. If you like the video, please give it a like. If you want the next episode, please subscribe. You are welcome to leave comments to discuss with me further. I will read and reply to every comment. Welcome to Ten O'Clock Decryption. Hello everyone, I am Air. See you next episode.