The extensive territory goved by the Qing dynasty is much larger than that of the Ming;the various ethnic groups living on this territory spoke different languages and the central govment relied on translation to communicate with local people and to collect military and political intelligence.The history of how the Qing court regulated and standardized Tibetan translation practice for more than a hundred years show us that the institutionalization of frontier region administration has never been a once-and-for-all endeavor of a top-down edict but a long process of trial and error.