The history of real paper began in what is now the People's Republic of China. Similar to the Egyptians, the Chinese had, virtually 5000 years in the past, invented a pictographic style of writing. They also had been making use of various objects to scribe upon, notably strips of bamboo and woven silk and possibly the barkcloth they utilized for other uses from the Paper. Mulberry was used also.
Legend points to the fact that in 105AD a government worker by the name of Tsai Lung, created papyrus, though it appears from archaeological finds that it was actually being worked with in China for probably two hundred years prior to him.
Way back during olden times scribing was generally on some form of bamboo or on lengths of silk, which were called Ji in those days. Nevertheless the great price of silk and the weight of bamboo, these two materials were not of great use. At this time Tsai Lun came up with the idea of utilizing the bark from trees, rags, fish nets, and hemp. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he submitted a report to the emperor about the process of paper manufacture and received high accolade for his ideas. Consequently, from that time paper has been in use every place and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If the above historical tag is correct or not, will very likely not ever be known! However, the major consideration has to be that they discovered that they could grind particular compounds derived from plants in to a paste, bstract unwanted substances, place the paste in water, screen it onto textile sheets giving it enough time to dry out. When it dried, it calcified into a hard, robust sheet that turned out to be very light, and as long as it was not allowed to come into contact with water, proved astonishingly tough.
It's a fact that this extremely simple of paper making techniques is even now still being used in precisely the same way around Nepal and Tibet, the initial regions to make use of the craft from South East Asia. A basic frame utilises a type of cotton cloth pulled and held over a single side, very watery pulp is situated into the far end and spread around until it has reached a level. Then it is left suspended so that it will enable the liquid to drain out of it and the mush to dry into a sheet of parchment which will be able to be peeled off.
As time passed an extremely clever individual realized that building a frame with ribs and putting in place a fine bamboo mat that is replaceable across this, would let the procedure to be accelerated to a much greater degree. Rather than utilizing a single mold for every parchment sheet, therefore severely limiting the number of sheets that may be produced at one time, a stack of sieved mash was able to be built up a layer at a time, with merely a piece of cotton thread between them which would facilitate separation at a later time. The stack would then be pressed slightly, and each sheet of grume transferred to a place to dry.