The invention provides a message forwarding method and a grouped optical transmission network device. The method includes the steps of recognizing the address type and a destination address of a message after the optical transmission network device receives the message, determining the address of a next hop network device which forwards the message through the optical transmission network device according to the destination address of the message and message forwarding tables which correspond to the address types of the message, and forwarding the message to the next hop network device through the optical transmission network device according to the address of the next hop network device, wherein the address is of a type from a physical layer to a network layer, the message forwarding tables which correspond to the different address types are configured in the optical transmission network device. According to the message forwarding method and the grouped optical transmission network device, terminal resources of a core router are saved, forwarding pressure of the core router is reduced, and the number of forwarding hops of the message is reduced.