quality:corruption, linguistic:voice_change, structural:scholar_edition, structural:reformatting, structural:summarization
Ottoman war

Konstantin Mihailović (who served as a janissary in the sultan's army) recorded that Vlad refused to pay homage to the sultan in an unspecified year. The Renaissance historian Giovanni Maria degli Angiolelli likewise wrote that Vlad had failed to pay tribute to the sultan for three years. Both records suggest that Vlad ignored the suzerainty of the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed II, already in 1459, but both works were written decades after the events. Tursun Beg (a secretary in the sultan's court) stated that Vlad only turned against the Ottoman Empire when the sultan "was away on the long expedition in Trebizon " in 1461. According to Tursun Beg, Vlad started new negotiations with Matthias Corvinus, but the sultan was soon informed by his spies. Mehmed sent his envoy, the Greek Thomas Katabolinos (also known as Yunus bey), to Wallachia, ordering Vlad to come to Constantinople. He also sent secret instructions to Hamza, bey of Nicopolis, to capture Vlad after he crossed the Danube. Vlad found out the sultan's "deceit and trickery", captured Hamza and Katabolinos, and had them executed.

After the execution of the Ottoman officials, Vlad gave orders in fluent Turkish to the commander of the fortress of Giurgiu to open the gates, enabling the Wallachian soldiers to break into the fortress and capture it. He invaded the Ottoman Empire, devastating the villages along the Danube. He informed Matthias Corvinus about the military action in a letter on 11 February 1462. He stated that more than "23,884 Turks and Bulgarians" had been killed at his order during the campaign. He sought military assistance from Corvinus, declaring that he had broken the peace with the sultan "for the honor" of the king and the Holy Crown of Hungary and "for the preservation of Christianity and the strengthening of the Catholic faith". The relationship between Moldavia and Wallachia had become tense by 1462, according to a letter of the Genoese governor of Kaffa.

Having learnt of Vlad's invasion, Mehmed II raised an army of more than 150,000 strong that was said to be "second in size only to the one" that occupied Constantinople in 1453, according to Chalkokondyles. The size of the army suggests that the sultan wanted to occupy Wallachia, according to a number of historians (including Franz Babinger, Radu Florescu, and Nicolae Stoicescu). On the other hand, Mehmed had granted Wallachia to Vlad's brother, Radu, before the invasion of Wallachia, showing that the sultan's principal purpose was only the change of the ruler of Wallachia.

The Ottoman fleet landed at Brăila (which was the only Wallachian port on the Danube) in May. The main Ottoman army crossed the Danube under the command of the sultan at Nikopol, Bulgaria on 4 June 1462. Outnumbered by the enemy, Vlad adopted a scorched earth policy and retreated towards Târgoviște. During the night of 16 – 17 June, Vlad broke into the Ottoman camp in an attempt to capture or kill the sultan. Either the imprisonment or the death of the sultan would have caused panic among the Ottomans, which could have enabled Vlad to defeat the Ottoman army. However, the Wallachians "missed the court of the sultan himself" and attacked the tents of the viziers Mahmud Pasha and Isaac. Having failed to attack the sultan's camp, Vlad and his retainers left the Ottoman camp at dawn. Mehmed entered Târgoviște at the end of June. The town had been deserted, but the Ottomans were horrified to discover a "forest of the impaled" (thousands of stakes with the carcasses of executed people), according to Chalkokondyles.

The sultan's army entered into the area of the impalements, which was seventeen stades long and seven stades wide. There were large stakes there on which, as it was said, about twenty thousand men, women, and children had been spitted, quite a sight for the Turks and the sultan himself. The sultan was seized with amazement and said that it was not possible to deprive of his country a man who had done such great deeds, who had such a diabolical understanding of how to govern his realm and its people. And he said that a man who had done such things was worth much. The rest of the Turks were dumbfounded when they saw the multitude of men on the stakes. There were infants too affixed to their mothers on the stakes, and birds had made their nests in their entrails.

Tursun Beg recorded that the Ottomans suffered from the summer heat and thirst during the campaign. The sultan decided to retreat from Wallachia and marched towards Brăila. Stephen III of Moldavia hurried to Chilia (now Kiliya in Ukraine) to seize the important fortress where a Hungarian garrison had been placed. Vlad also departed for Chilia, but left behind a troop of 6,000 strong to try to hinder the march of the sultan's army, but the Ottomans defeated the Wallachians. Stephen of Moldavia was wounded during the siege of Chilia and returned to Moldavia before Vlad came to the fortress.

The main Ottoman army left Wallachia, but Vlad's brother Radu and his Ottoman troops stayed behind in the Bărăgan Plain. Radu sent messengers to the Wallachians, reminding them that the sultan could again invade their country. Although Vlad defeated Radu and his Ottoman allies in two battles during the following months, more and more Wallachians deserted to Radu. Vlad withdrew to the Carpathian Mountains, hoping that Matthias Corvinus would help him regain his throne. However, Albert of Istenmező, the deputy of the Count of the Székelys, had recommended in mid-August that the Saxons recognize Radu. Radu also made an offer to the burghers of Brașov to confirm their commercial privileges and pay them a compensation of 15,000 ducats.