The story of genuine paper began in what is now the People's Republic of China. Like the Egyptians, the Chinese had, nearly 50 centuries in the past, developed a pictographic style of writing. The Egyptians too had been utilizing many different kinds of objects to scribe on, notably pieces of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and it is possible that the barkcloth they utilized for other uses derived from the Paper. Mulberry was used as well.
History points to the fact that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a government worker called Tsai Lung, created paper, although it is clear from archaeological discoveries that actually it was around in South East Asia for at least two centuries prior to Tsai Lung.
Back in times gone by writing was generally on some form of bamboo or on lengths of silk, which were known as Ji then. But silk was expensive and the weight of bamboo, these two materials were inconvenient. Due to these factors Tsai Lun came up with the idea of using bark, hemp, fish nets, and rags. In 105AD he made a report to the emperor on the process of making paper and received much praise for his abilities. Consequently, from those distant times paper has been availed of in almost every place on earth and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether this particular claim is relevant, will probably not ever be known! Nevertheless the major consideration is that they found that if they ground certain compounds derived from plants in to a mush, withdraw spume, place the mush in water, sieve it out onto fabric sheets giving it time to dry. After the drying process was complete, it congealed into a hard, resilient sheet that was remarkably light, and provided that it was not allowed to get wet, proved exceedingly tough.
It's a fact that this very easy of paper making technologies is still being used in exactly the same way within Nepal and Tibet, the very first regions to pick up the techniques from China. A simple frame utilises a cloth made from cotton pulled and held over a single side, very watery paste is put into the other end and spread around until it has reached an even state. It is then suspended so that it will allow the liquid to drain out of it and the pulp to dry into a sheet of parchment which will be able to be stripped off.
By and by an extremely talented individual worked out that making a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting a delicate bamboo mat that is removable across it, would let the procedure to be quickened to a great degree. Rather than tying up one mould for every paper sheet, therefore severely limiting the amount of sheets that are able to be produced at one time, a stack of sieved grume could be built up a layer at a time, with only a length of cotton thread between them which would help with separation at a later time. The stack would then be squeezed very lightly, and each sheet of mache transferred to a board to dry.