The history of genuine paper started in South East Asia. Similar to the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, almost fifty centuries in the past, developed a type of pictographic writing. They too had been making use of various kinds of objects to write on, most notably lengths of bamboo and woven silk and possibly the barkcloth they used for other reasons derived from the Paper. Mulberry was also used.
Historical documentation leads us to believe that in 105AD a government worker going by the name of Tsai Lung, created usable paper, though it seems from archaeological finds that actually it was being worked with in China for more than likely two centuries prior to Tsai Lung.
During olden times scribing was generally on some form of bamboo or sometimes on strips of silk, which were then called ji. But the prohibitive cost of silk and the weight of bamboo, these materials were not convenient. Then Tsai Lun came up with the idea of utilizing bark, fish nets, rags, and hemp. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he delivered a report to the emperor on the process of making paper and got high accolade for his abilities. From that period paper has been in use universally and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If the above title is relevant or not, will probably never be uncovered! Nevertheless the important thing has to be that it was discovered that if they pounded certain compounds taken from plant material into a mash, throw out unwanted materials, put the mash in water, filter it out onto fabric sheets and give it time to dry out. When fully dried, it compressed into a firm, robust sheet that turned out to be very light, and as long as it was not allowed to get damp, turned out to be remarkably durable.
This simplest of paper making technologies is still practised in exactly the same way in Nepal and Tibet, the initial regions to learn the craft from what is now the People's Republic of China. A basic frame utilizes a type of cotton cloth stretched over a single side, watery paste is situated in to the other end and moved around until it has become even. It is then left suspended in order for it to let the liquid to leave it and the mush to dry in to a sheet of parchment which will be able to be peeled off.
At some point in time an extremely talented individual came to the conclusion that manufacturing a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting in place a delicate removable bamboo mat over it, would allow the procedure to be speeded up greatly. Instead of utilizing a single mold for each paper sheet, severely limiting the number of sheets that could be manufactured at one time, a stack of sieved pulp was able to be built up a layer at a time, with merely a strip of cotton thread between them in order to help with later separation. The stack would then be pressed very lightly, and every layer of grume moved to a place to dry.