The origins of real paper happened in China. Similar to the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, virtually five thousand years ago, created a type of writing that used images. They also had been making use of many different types of things to scribe upon, most notably pieces of bamboo and woven silk and possibly the barkcloth they were making for other uses from the Paper. Mulberry was used also.
History tells us that in 105AD a member of the government named Tsai Lung, developed usable paper, though it is clear from archaeological finds that it was actually being used in what is now the People's Republic of China for probably two hundred years before Tsai Lung.
Back during ancient times gone by writing was mainly on bamboo or sometimes on lengths of silk, which were known as Ji in those days. However, the great price of silk and bamboo being heavy, these materials were inconvenient. Due to these factors Tsai Lun came up with the idea of using tree bark, rags, hemp, and fish nets. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he put an idea to the emperor on the process of paper manufacture and was endowed with high praise for his idea. From that time paper has been in use globally and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether this accolade is Tsai's entitlement, will very likely never be uncovered! Nonetheless the important factor must be that they discovered that if they pounded some substances derived from plant material into a pulp, take out impure materials, float the pulp in water, sieve it onto textile sheets giving it enough time to dry out. After drying, it calcified into a hard, firm sheet that turned out to be extraordinarily light, and provided that it was not allowed to get damp, turned out to be remarkably robust.
This the most simple of papermaking techniques is still practised in precisely the same way within Tibet and Nepal, the first places to pick up the craft from South East Asia. A basic frame utilizes a type of cotton cloth pulled and held over a single side, very watery mush is poured in to the opposite side and spread around until it has reached a level. Then it is left that will enable the liquid to drain and the mache to dry into a sheet of parchment which can be removed by peeling.
At some point in time a developer with great skills came to the conclusion that building a frame with ribbing and putting in place a fine removable bamboo mat across it, would let the paper-making procedure to be quickened to a much greater degree. Rather than using one mold for each paper sheet, therefore severely limiting the number of sheets that could be manufactured at one time, a stack of sieved paste was able to be built up layer upon layer, with merely a piece of cotton thread between them in order to facilitate separation at a later time. The stack would then be squeezed very gently, and every layer of grume transferred to a place to dry.