End of the nineteenth century. Petersburg detective Pyotr Ilyich Vasilchikov, who due to circumstances settled in the provinces, receives an invitation from Count Kuraev to come to his estate. The old count asks the detective to solve a crime and follow a man known throughout the Volga region - the merchant of the first guild Darmidont Kabanin. No one dares to measure his strength - officials are bribed, ordinary people are intimidated. Large nobles are afraid to get involved with the nouveau riche tycoon. Pyotr Ilyich will have to embark on a journey full of dangers. The provinces of the Middle Volga, Eastern Europe, the Far East and Beijing - private detective Pyotr Ilyich Vasilchikov will travel along these routes to destroy the empire created by Vepr and find out the fatal secret that the ancestors of two rival clans kept for three centuries.