The Macau-baptized Zheng Zhilong took the opportunity of the Ming-Qing transition and emerged as a compelling Ming official and an invincible pirate king rivalling the elusive Dutch. He forged a huge piratical empire and helped install a shadow government of the defunct Ming court in south China. Immersed in Ming Loyalism, his son Zheng Chenggong ousted the Dutch from Taiwan and established the Kingdom of Dongning to challenge the ruling power of the new Qing Empire.