Here’s my very first Asylum article, followed by some bonus material.
Happy birthday, President Washington!
What made Ol’ Wooden Chompers the Father of Our Country (besides spending all of mom’s money on drink), was his sheer will to make the army function. When the Pennsylvania Line mutinied, Washington did the unexpected: He took their grievances to Congress. (Less lucky: the executed leaders of the New Jersey Line uprising thereafter.)
When the going gets tough, the tough get creative, and quite possibly brutal. Confronted by a challenge, these leaders proved unpredictable enough to win, or at least blow the enemy’s mind.
HANNIBAL BARCA
When Hannibal wanted to move his army somewhere that hadn’t been used as a toilet by 50,000 mercenaries, Roman general Fabius was outside the valley blocking more access points than a Promise Keepers purity ball.
Common sense says press the enemy’s weakest point, move in darkness, and divert attention to spread out your foes. But only maniacal genius says to do all of those with stampeding cattle on fire.
With burning torches tied to their horns, the army guided the panicked cows to the pass. By the time they reached the Romans guarding it, half the forest was on fire and the other half smelled like delicious steak.
Hannibal’s army waltzed through, presumably in the formation of a middle finger.
TIMUR
Hannibal was most famous for bringing elephants over the Alps and only getting most of their handlers killed.
But elephants are smart enough to panic when things go wrong. Like, for instance, in witness of burning livestock.
Facing 120 armored war elephants with poisoned tusks, Genghis Khan’s descendant Timur sanely responded, “Hell no, I’m not fighting that.” He then not-so-sanely set camels on fire. The elephants turned and trampled the Indian army in their rush to be someplace with fewer screaming pack-animals.
VLAD III
What, in turn, intimidated the Turks? Only Dracula.
In his time, Prince Vlad impaled more people than Ron Jeremy. He racked up a six-figure body count back when the world population practically was six figures.
That didn’t deter Sultan Mehmed II from invading Wallachia, so Vlad undertook the most ambitious PsyOp in history. As the Sultan’s army marched into Targoviste, they passed through a forest of 20,000 impaled Turks. 
ZHUGE LIANG
“The Crouching Dragon” of the Shu Kingdom caught one rebel leader seven times, setting him free until he surrendered of his own broken will. He was feared in a way most men brandishing feathery fans are not. Basically, he was Ancient Chinese Batman.
The best story about Zhuge Liang that doesn’t involve magic is when Zhou Yu, the Wu commander told Zhuge Liang that he had to supply 100,000 arrows in 10 days or be executed.
The resourceful Liang filled boats with scarecrows and drifted toward the opponents’ encampment. His war drums attracted more than 100,000 arrows, all sunk in the boat hull and his straw sailors. 
SIMEON & LEVI
For the last word in tricks that succeeded despite being insane, consider Israel versus the Hivites. Simeon & Levi’s sister was raped by Prince Shechem of the Hivites, who then had the gumption to ask for her hand in marriage.
So the brothers offered to merge tribes, with one catch. As per Jewish law, Hivite men would need to be circumcised. (Although one would hope there was also a “no more rape” clause.)
The Hivites soon found themselves … well, let the Bible tell it: “On the third day, when the men of the city were in pain, Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi each took his sword, came upon the city with stealth, and killed all the men, including Hamor and Shechem.”
That’s right. Two avengers slaughtered every man in the city, none of whom could stand up. Remember that if anyone offers to trade you cattle for your foreskin.