The story of genuine paper began in South East Asia. Like the Egyptians, the Chinese had, nearly 5,000 years ago, developed a type of writing that used images. They also had been making use of many different kinds of objects to write upon, most commonly lengths of bamboo and woven silk and possibly the barkcloth they made for other unconnected purposes derived out of the Paper. Mulberry was made use of too.
History tells us that in 105AD a member of the government by the name of Tsai Lung, brought out usable paper, though it is clear from archaeological digs that in fact it was being worked with in what is now the People's Republic of China for more than likely two hundred years prior to Tsai Lung.
In olden times setting down words or pictograms was usually on some derivative of bamboo or sometimes on strips of silk, which were known as Ji in those days. However, the cost of silk and bamboo being too weighty, these materials were not convenient. Due to these factors Tsai Lun came up with the idea of utilizing tree bark, hemp, fish nets, and rags. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he made a report to the emperor regarding the process of making paper and was endowed with high accolade for his ability. Consequently, from those distant times paper has been in use universally and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If this particular claim is Marquis Tsai's entitlement or not, will very likely never be uncovered! But the major consideration has to be that they discovered that if they ground particular compounds taken from plant material in to a paste, take out impure materials, place the paste in liquid, sieve it onto fabric sheets giving it time to dry. When it dried, it congealed into a hard, tough sheet that turned out to be incredibly light, and provided that it was not allowed to get wet, proved exceedingly durable.
This most straightforward of papermaking techniques is still practised in precisely a similar way around Tibet and Nepal, the initial regions to pick up the technolgies from China. A simple frame has a type of cotton cloth pulled and held over one side, diluted pulp is put into the far end and moved around until it has reached an even state. After which it is left hanging somewhere to let the water to drain out of it and the grume to dry in to a parchment sheet which will be able to be stripped off.
As time passed a very talented individual worked out that manufacturing a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and placing a fine removable bamboo mat over this, would allow the paper-making procedure to be accelerated enormously. Instead of utilizing one mould for every sheet of parchment, consequently severely restricting the amount of sheets that can be made at the same time, a stack of sieved mush could be built up layer upon layer, with merely a length of cotton thread between them in order to facilitate later separation. The stack would then be pressed lightly, and each layer of mache shifted to a dry board.