The story of genuine paper happened in what is now the People's Republic of China. Similar to the Egyptians, the Chinese had, almost fifty centuries ago, brought out a type of pictographic writing. The Egyptians too had been using several types of objects to write upon, usually pieces of bamboo and woven silk and it is possible that the barkcloth they were using for other purposes derived from the Paper. Mulberry was made use of as well.
History tells us that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a government worker by the name of Tsai Lung, invented paper, although it is almost certain from finds by archaeologists that it was actually being worked with in South East Asia for more than likely two centuries before Tsai Lung.
Back during olden times setting down words or pictograms was usually on some derivative of bamboo or on lengths of silk, which were known as Ji in those days. But silk was expensive and bamboo being very weighty, these materials were not of great use. Then Tsai Lun came up with the idea of utilizing bark, hemp, rags, and fish nets. In 105AD he put an idea to the emperor regarding the production of paper and was endowed with much praise for his inventions. Consequently, from that time paper has been availed of globally and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If indeed the above historical tag is Marquis Tsai's entitlement or not, will probably not ever be known! Nonetheless the important thing has to be that they found that they could grind some substances derived from plant material into a mache, displace unwanted substances, place the mache in water, screen it out onto fabric sheets giving it enough time to dry out. After drying, it dried into a firm, durable sheet that was particularly light, and provided that it did not get damp or wet, turned out to be exceedingly tenacious.
This most simple of paper making technologies is even now practised in exactly a similar way in and around Nepal and Tibet, the first countries to pick up the craft from China. A basic frame utilizes a cloth manufactured from cotton stretched over one side, watery mash is put in to the other side and spread around until it is smooth. It is then left so that it will enable the liquid to drain out of it and the grume to dry into a parchment sheet which can be taken off.
As time went by a developer with great skills realized that building a frame with ribs and putting in place a delicate bamboo mat that is removable over it, would let the paper-making process to be quickened to a much greater degree. Instead of tying up one mould for every paper sheet, severely limiting the number of sheets that can be produced at one time, a stack of sieved mush was able to be built up a layer at a time, with only a piece of cotton thread between them in order to facilitate separation at a later time. The stack would then be squeezed gently, and each sheet of paste moved to a board to dry.