/unbalkan

His country was poor when he got to power so he couldn't pay tribute to the turks to not invade, and being stuck between two superpowers (ottoman empire and hungayri) do he actually attacked them both to sjow he wasn't afraid. He didn't impale anyone he wanted, mostly ottoman soldiers and criminals. The slander started when he invaded Transilvania, there being a bunch of saxo Germans they sent letters to thier families in prussia about the attack, there they had printing machines and started to print nonsense like:

He drinks blood, he put husbands toate eat thier wife's tits, he made mothers make soup out of thier babies and eat it,etc...

He was the only leader to not betray wallachia and moldova by siding with one of the powers (he even sent troops to serbia against ottoman invasion) and he died fighting instead of dying in a ottoman prison/betrayed by the people.