The history of proper paper started in South East Asia. Similar to the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, virtually five thousand years ago, invented a pictographic form of writing. They too had been making use of many different things to scribe on, most notably strips of bamboo and processed silk and it is possible that the barkcloth they were making for other reasons derived out of the Paper. Mulberry was ased too.
History leads us to believe that in 105AD an official called Tsai Lung, brought out paper, although it seems from archaeological discoveries that in fact it was in existence in China for more than likely two centuries prior to Tsai Lung.
Back in olden times setting down words was usually done on some derivative of bamboo or sometimes on pieces of silk, which were known as Ji in those days. But silk was expensive and bamboo being very heavy, these materials were not of great use. At this time Tsai Lun thought of using bark, rags, fish nets, and hemp. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he submitted a report to the emperor regarding the process of paper manufacture and was endowed with high praise for his thoughts. From those distant times paper has been in use everywhere and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If indeed this accolade is relevant, will likely never be known! Nonetheless the important factor has to be that the discovery was made that they could pound particular substances derived from plant matter in to a mush, expel spume, place the mush in water, filter it out onto textile sheets and allow it to dry. When it dried, it dried into a firm, tenacious sheet that turned out to be extremely light, and as long as it did not get wet, turned out to be exceedingly resilient.
This simplest of paper making technologies is still practised in exactly the same way around Tibet and Nepal, the very first regions to make use of the techniques from what is now the People's Republic of China. A simple frame utilises a cloth made from cotton pulled and held over one side, very watery mash is emptied into the far side and moved around until it has reached a level. It is then left suspended that will enable the liquid to drain and the mache to dry in to a sheet of parchment which may be taken off.
Eventually a clever developer worked out that building a frame with ribbing and placing a fine bamboo mat that is replaceable across this, would allow the process to be speeded up incredibly. Instead of using a single mould for every paper sheet, therefore severely restricting the amount of sheets that can be made at one time, a stack of sieved paste was able to be built up a layer at a time, with just a piece of cotton thread between them which would enable later separation. The stack would then be squeezed gently, and each layer of grume transferred to a board to dry.