The story of proper paper started in China. Similar to the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, nearly fifty centuries ago, invented a pictographic form of writing. They also had been using various objects to scribe upon, most notably strips of bamboo and woven silk and possibly the barkcloth they were making for other unconnected purposes derived from the Paper. Mulberry was ased too.
Historical documentation leads us to believe that in 105AD an official by the name of Tsai Lung, developed papyrus, although it appears from archaeological discoveries that actually it was around in what is now the People's Republic of China for more than likely two hundred years prior to Tsai Lung.
Way back during times gone by writing was generally on some form of bamboo or on lengths of silk, which were known as Ji then. Nonetheless silk being expensive and bamboo being weighty, these two materials were not convenient. Around then Tsai Lun thought of utilizing bark, rags, hemp, and fish nets. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he submitted a report to the emperor about the process of paper manufacture and received high praise for his inventions. Consequently, from those days paper has been availed of all over the world and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If this historical reference is correct or not, will very likely not ever be known! Nevertheless the most important thing is that they discovered that they could grind some substances derived from plants in to a mush, evacuate impure materials, float the mush in water, sieve it onto fabric sheets and allow it to dry. When it dried, it congealed into a hard, tough sheet that turned out to be extremely light, and provided that it did not come into contact with water, proved very tenacious.
It's a fact that this very simple of papermaking techniques is still in use in exactly a similar way within Nepal and Tibet, the first places to pick up the techniques from South East Asia. A basic frame makes use of a kind of cotton cloth made to stretch over a side, watery grume is situated into the far side and moved around until it is smooth. After which it is left hanging somewhere to allow the liquid to drain and the mash to dry in to a sheet of parchment which may be stripped off.
As time passed a talented developer figured that manufacturing a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and placing a fine removable bamboo mat across it, would enable the paper-making procedure to be quickened to a much greater degree. Instead of using one mold for each sheet of paper, therefore severely restricting the amount of sheets that may be made at the same time, a stack of sieved pulp could be built up a layer at a time, with merely a strip of cotton thread between them to enable later separation. The stack would then be pressed very gently, and every layer of paste transferred to a dry place.