The story of real paper happened in China. Like the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, virtually fifty centuries ago, invented a type of writing that used pictures. The Egyptians too had been making use of various types of things to write upon, notably pieces of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and it is possible that the barkcloth they were making for other reasons derived out of the Paper. Mulberry was used also.
History points to the fact that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a member of the government called Tsai Lung, brought out papyrus, although it is clear from archaeological discoveries that it was in fact around in South East Asia for more than likely two centuries prior to him.
During times gone by writing was mainly done on some form of bamboo or sometimes on lengths of silk, which were called Ji in those days. However, the cost of silk and bamboo being too heavy, these two materials were not of great use. Around then Tsai Lun thought of using bark from trees, hemp, rags, and fish nets. In 105AD he delivered a report to the emperor on the process of paper making and received many accolades for his idea. From those distant times paper has been utilized globally and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If indeed the above historical tag is Tsai's entitlement, will very likely never be uncovered! Nevertheless the important thing must be that they found that they could pound particular substances taken from plants in to a mush, take out unwanted substances, place the mush in liquid, screen it onto fabric sheets giving it time to dry. After the drying process was complete, it congealed into a firm, dense sheet that was very light, and provided that it was not allowed to come into contact with water, turned out to be decidedly resilient.
This most simple of papermaking technologies is even now still being used in exactly a similar way in Nepal and Tibet, the first areas to make use of the technolgies from what is now the People's Republic of China. A simple frame utilizes a type of cotton cloth pulled and held over a single side, very watery grume is situated into the far side and spread about until it is even. After which it is left suspended in order for it to let the water to drain and the pulp to dry into a sheet of parchment which can be peeled off.
It eventually came to pass that a developer with great skills came to the conclusion that building a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting in place a delicate removable bamboo mat across this, would enable the paper-making process to be quickened incredibly. Rather than using one mold for every parchment sheet, severely restricting the number of sheets that are able to be made at one time, a stack of sieved paste was able to be built up layer upon layer, with just a strip of cotton thread between them in order to enable later separation. The stack would then be squeezed gently, and each sheet of mache moved to a board to dry.