The story of real paper began in China. Like the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, almost fifty centuries in the past, brought out a pictographic type of writing. They also had been making use of various types of things to scribe upon, most usually strips of bamboo and processed silk and possibly the barkcloth they were using for other reasons from the Paper. Mulberry was ased too.
History points to the fact that in 105AD a member of the government called Tsai Lung, created paper, though it is almost certain from archaeological digs that it was in fact being used in South East Asia for probably two hundred years before him.
During ancient times setting down words was usually on some derivative of bamboo or sometimes on pieces of silk, which were known as Ji then. Nevertheless the great price of silk and bamboo being too weighty, these two materials were inconvenient. Due to this Tsai Lun came up with the idea of using tree bark, fish nets, hemp, and rags. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he put an idea to the emperor with regard to the process of paper making and received many accolades for his abilities. Consequently, from that period paper has been availed of in almost every place on earth and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If indeed the above historical tag is Marquis Tsai's entitlement, will likely never be uncovered! However, the major consideration must be that the discovery was made that they could pound particular substances derived from plant material in to a mash, throw out unwanted materials, put the mash in liquid, screen it out onto fabric sheets and allow it to dry. When it dried, it congealed into a hard, resilient sheet that turned out to be particularly light, and provided that it did not get damp or wet, proved astonishingly tenacious.
It's a fact that this very simple of papermaking techniques is even now practised in exactly the same way in and around Tibet and Nepal, the very first regions to pick up the technolgies from what is now the People's Republic of China. A simple frame makes use of a cotton cloth stretched over one side, diluted mush is emptied into the other side and spread around until it is level. After which it is suspended somewhere to enable the water to drain and the pulp to dry into a paper sheet which will be able to be stripped off.
As time went by a developer with great skills came to realize that building a frame with ribs and putting in place a delicate bamboo mat that is removable over it, would let the paper-making procedure to be accelerated enormously. Instead of using one mould for every parchment sheet, severely limiting the number of sheets that could be manufactured at the same time, a stack of sieved paste could be built up layer upon layer, with merely a strip of cotton thread between them in order to help with separation at a later time. The stack would then be pressed very slightly, and each sheet of grume shifted to a dry board.