played a major

role in permitting Chosun to remain independent.
Furthermore, the royal government, realizing the error of
its ways, began once again to support the martial arts and bolster
defenses.
One remaining artifact of this renewal is a volume entitled
the Muyedobo-Tongji, a text illustrating martial arts techniques
fully resembling those practiced today in taekwondo.
Nevertheless, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries found yet
another suppression of the martial arts, this time officially sanctioned.
Intellectual activities were on the rise, accompanied by
the introduction of Christianity. Japan continued its fight for the
Korean peninsula, battling first with China and then Russia for
dominance over the strategically important nation. Finally, in
1910, after centuries of hostilities, the formal annexation of
Korea took place effectively bringing an end to the five
hundred-year-old Yi (Chosun) dynasty, and placing the nation
under Japanese imperial rule.