Abstract: Building frontier walls in the Miao regions in Xiangxi in the Ming Dynasty was design to be a military engineering.In fact,it had also shouldered many social functions.These walls had undergone several processes by different hands.The strategies to govern the Miao people had changed obviously,but essentially they came down in a continuous line,which was to offer amnesty and enlistment to the Miao People,with the purpose of defending being secondary.The social functions of the frontier walls also relied on the perfect Tusi and Tuguan system（system of appointing national minority hereditary headmen),so the forts,and the walls as well,all depended on the Tusi and Tuguan system,with the military defenses mainly located in the Tusi manors.The adjustment of the strategies to govern the Miao people in the Ming Dynasty was not because of the rebellious Miao people,but because of the governors’ strategies to govern according to local features and cultural differences.

Key words: Miao frontiers in Xiangxi, evolution of governing strategies, Tusi system