The new leaders confront a growing urban class ready to take to the streets to protest about environmental ruin and to oppose polluting projects.

The small, educated urban class had little in common with the conservative countryside.

Plague and famine hit the urban class in greater proportion, and thus the people who knew how to keep civic services running.

Together, these factors culminated in the withdrawal of the urban class from all forms of military activity.

War disasters in the middle of that century devastated the urban classes.