The Salar clan leaders voluntarily capitulated to the Ming dynasty around 1370. The chief of the four upper clans around this time was Han Baoyuan and the Ming government granted him office of centurion, it was at this time the people of his four clans took Han as their surname. The other chief Han Shanba of the four lower Salar clans got the same office from the Ming government, and his clans were the ones who took Ma as their surname. The ethnogenesis of the Salar started from when they pledged allegiance to the Ming dynasty under their leader Han Bao. Han Bao's father was Omar, and Omar's father was Haraman, who led the Salars on their journey from Central Asia to China.