The history of true paper happened in what is now the People's Republic of China. Like the Egyptians, the Chinese had, almost 50 centuries ago, brought out a kind of writing that used images. They too had been using many different types of things to scribe upon, most notably lengths of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and possibly the barkcloth they were making for other uses from the Paper. Mulberry was used also.
Historical documentation leads us to believe that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a member of the government by the name of Tsai Lung, invented usable paper, although it appears from archaeological digs that it was in fact in existence in South East Asia for at least two centuries prior to Tsai Lung.
During ancient times scribing was mainly done on some form of bamboo or occasionally on strips of silk, which were called Ji in those days. However, silk was expensive and bamboo being heavy, these materials were not convenient. Then Tsai Lun came up with the idea of making use of tree bark, hemp, rags, and fish nets. In 105AD he delivered a report to the emperor regarding the process of paper making and got high accolade for his thoughts. Consequently, since then paper has been utilized globally and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If this particular claim is relevant, will very likely never be known! But the important consideration is that it was found that if they ground particular plant-derived compounds into a pulp, oust impure materials, place the pulp in water, screen it onto textile sheets giving it time to dry. When it dried, it congealed into a firm, resilient sheet that turned out to be remarkably light, and providing it was not allowed to get damp, proved incredibly robust.
This most straightforward of papermaking techniques is even now in use in precisely a similar way in and around Nepal and Tibet, the first countries to take the techniques from China. A basic frame utilizes a type of cotton cloth stretched over a single side, watery mush is poured in to the opposite side and moved around until it is even. Then it is left suspended that will enable the liquid to leave it and the grume to dry into a parchment sheet which can be stripped off.
As time went by a developer with great skills came to realize that constructing a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting a fine replaceable bamboo mat across this, would allow the paper-making procedure to be speeded up greatly. Rather than utilizing one mould for each sheet of parchment, therefore severely limiting the amount of sheets that are able to be made at one time, a stack of sieved mache could be built up layer upon layer, with merely a strip of cotton thread between them which would facilitate later separation. The stack would then be squeezed very gently, and every layer of mash moved to a board to dry.