After the decline of the Tang imperial authority in the late ninth century, a number of local warlords competed to erect autonomous regimes by force, gradually establishing their own dynasties. The first two dynasties after the end of the Tang, the Later Liang and the Later Tang, grew out of the rival regimes established by Zhu Wen and Li Keyong. 80th Zhu and Li were bellicose generals, but who increasingly came to realize the importance of legitimacy in the process of building their national regimes. To legitimize his power, Zhu Wen claimed that the Tang orthodox authority had been transmitted to him. In contrast, Li Keyong and his son legitimized their fight against Zhu by claiming that they carried the standard of Tang restoration. Although adopting different approaches, both two military-oriented regimes turned to civil issues, such as organizing the bureaucracy and performing rituals. From a cultural perspective, the political leaders’ interest in civil affairs preserved and promoted Confucian tradition under violent conditions. Their claims to orthodoxy before they effectively controlled all of China, however, retarded the military actions of these two regimes, because the attention of their rulers was diverted from the battlefield to civil affairs. This article will analyze the relationship between military expansion and the management of legitimation in both the Later Liang and the Later Tang. The short lives of the Later Liang and the Later Tang, I argue, are partly attributable to their emperors' efforts at legitimation. Military might rather than the appearance of orthodox dynastic practice was crucial to the fortunes of these two dynasties, but the emperors seemed to overemphasize the latter over the former.