The history of true paper happened in China. Similar to the Egyptians, the Chinese had, almost 5000 years in the past, invented a pictographic style of writing. They too had been making use of many different types of objects to scribe upon, most notably pieces of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and possibly the barkcloth they were making for other purposes derived from the Paper. Mulberry was used also.
History points to the fact that in 105AD a government worker going by the name of Tsai Lung, developed papyrus, though it appears from archaeological digs that it was in fact being used in South East Asia for more than likely two centuries before him.
In ancient times gone by writing was usually on some form of bamboo or sometimes on lengths of silk, which were then called ji. However, the soaring cost of silk and bamboo being weighty, these two materials were not of great use. Due to these factors Tsai Lun came up with the idea of utilizing bark from trees, rags, hemp, and fish nets. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he delivered a report to the emperor with regard to the process of making paper and got high accolade for his idea. Consequently, from those days paper has been availed of universally and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether the above title is deserved or not, will likely not ever be known! Nevertheless the important thing is that it was discovered that they could pound particular substances taken from plant material in to a paste, expel impurities, place the paste in water, filter it out onto textile sheets and allow it to dry. After the drying process was complete, it congealed into a hard, tough sheet that turned out to be surprisingly light, and provided that it did not get wet, turned out to be extremely resilient.
This the easiest of papermaking techniques is still in use in precisely the same way in Nepal and Tibet, the very first countries to take the technolgies from what is now the People's Republic of China. A basic frame has a kind of cotton cloth made to stretch over a side, watery grume is poured into the far end and spread around until it is smooth. After which it is suspended that will let the liquid to leave it and the mache to dry into a sheet of parchment which may be removed.
There came a time when a clever developer figured that constructing a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting a delicate bamboo mat that is removable over it, would enable the process to be quickened fantastically. Rather than tying up one mold for every parchment sheet, therefore severely limiting the amount of sheets that are able to be manufactured at the same time, a stack of sieved mash could be built up a layer at a time, with merely a piece of cotton thread between them which would help with later separation. The stack would then be squeezed very lightly, and each sheet of mush moved to a board to dry.