The official history of the Song dynasty conveys additional details about Cengtan. For instance, we are informed that its 'language sounds like that of the Arabs' and that its 'climate is warm year-round' (Tuotuo et al., op. cit.: 490.14122). Most important among these details, however, is that the initially nameless envoy of Cengtan becomes named:  
In 1083, the envoy Protector Commandant Cengjiani came [to China] again [bearing gifts] to court. [Our emperor] Shenzong [r. 1067-1085], recognizing the extreme distance he had travelled in returning, beyond presenting him with the same gifts as before, added 2,000 taels of silver (Tuotuo et al. 1977, 490.14123).  
In Song times, a tael, being a liang in Chinese, was equivalent to 1.3 Western ounces.
We cannot ascertain whether the distinguished Cengjiani himself was African, or even if Cengtan in particular or Africa in general was his birthplace. Yet, even if he lacked African ancestry or provenance, we may be safely assured in believing Cengjiani to have come as directly as he could to China from Africa. Moreover, from the exaltedly prestigious title that the reigning Song emperor had bestowed on him, the latter half of which - 'commandant' (langjiang) - was granted only occasionally to aboriginal chieftains of the borderland west and southwest, we can detect that the Chinese regarded this emissary from Africa with high esteem. Yet, for assurance of his identity from the Chinese perspective as an African in China we can find no better proof than in his name itself. The Chinese - ceng-jia-ni - again appears clearly to be a phonetic approximation of the designation Zanj, which was likely meant at that time also to indicate his Zanzibarian place of origin (Filesi, 1972, p. 31; Dathorne, 1996, pp. 74, 83, 164). Thus, curiously, in the sole instance of Cengjiani, the term Zanj may very well somehow become dissociated from the condition of enslavement. However, given its literal meaning in Arabic as 'the blacks' (Snow, 2015, p. 9; Dikötter,  
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