The story of proper paper started in China. Similar to the indigenous people of Egypt, the Chinese had, virtually 5000 years ago, developed a pictographic style of writing. They also had been utilizing various things to scribe upon, most commonly strips of bamboo and processed silk and it is possible that the barkcloth they were making for other purposes derived from the Paper. Mulberry was used also.
Legend leads us to believe that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a government worker by the name of Tsai Lung, invented papyrus, though it is clear from archaeological discoveries that it was in fact around in what is now the People's Republic of China for more than likely two hundred years before him.
In ancient times writing was usually on some form of bamboo or sometimes on lengths of silk, which were called Ji in those days. However, the great price of silk and bamboo being weighty, these two materials were inconvenient. Due to these factors Tsai Lun came up with the idea of making use of bark, rags, fish nets, and hemp. In 105AD he delivered a report to the emperor with regard to the production of paper and received high accolade for his ideas. Consequently, from those distant times paper has been availed of everywhere and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If this accolade is accurate, will probably never be uncovered! Nevertheless the most important thing must be that it was discovered that if they ground certain plant-derived substances into a pulp, depose impure materials, put the pulp in water, filter it out onto cloth sheets giving it time to dry. After drying, it compacted into a hard, durable sheet that turned out to be particularly light, and providing it was not allowed to get wet, turned out to be surprisingly resilient.
It's a fact that this simple of papermaking techniques is still being used in exactly the same way in and around Tibet and Nepal, the very first areas to take the techniques from South East Asia. A simple frame makes use of a cotton cloth pulled and held over one side, diluted grume is poured in to the other end and spread around until it is even. It is then left that will allow the liquid to drain and the paste to dry in to a paper sheet which may be removed.
There came a time when an extremely talented individual figured that building a frame with ribs and putting a fine bamboo mat that is replaceable across it, would let the paper-making process to be quickened greatly. Rather than tying up a single mould for every sheet of paper, therefore severely limiting the number of sheets that are able to be produced at one time, a stack of sieved mache could be built up layer upon layer, with just a piece of cotton thread between them in order to enable later separation. The stack would then be pressed very slightly, and each sheet of mash moved to a place to dry.