Autumn 1849. Like thunder from a clear sky, the manifesto of the basileus is heard, sending the troops of the Power to the border with Livonia. In vain they try to convince the sovereign that such a gesture is fraught with a new all-European war, for which the Russian army is not ready. It is in vain that they remind us of the Balkan campaign, which the Livonian adventure threatens to derail, and they repeat the ambitions of the Kaiser of Prussia and his selected mercenaries. Arseny Kronidovich is not one of those who retreat, and not one of those who abandons his coreligionists without help. The order has been given, and now they have to live with what was said... and those who come to the banks of the border river Mlava may even die. Another story, another Russia, another 19th century, in which the memory of the glorious campaigns of Buonaparte and Suvorov is still too fresh. The new novel is the result of a sensational collaboration between two brilliant writers, falling in the wake of Russian historical and military prose, but this is not “Prince Silver”, not “Young Russia”, not “The Living and the Dead” and not “The Battle of the Iron Chancellors”, this is “ Mlava Red”, and in this book any miracles are possible.