Cai Lun served as a Langzhong (an official) in the imperial court. He held great office, power, and influence, so much so that his colleagues were somewhat afraid of him, and even the emperor and empress dared not look down upon him. Why? Because he was upright, fair, and unafraid to confront problems head-on, never shying away from offending others. When it came to treating the common people, however, he was truly a good man. He never bullied others by relying on his official status, and often went incognito among the people, rescuing the poor and needy and doing good deeds.
At that time, paper had not yet been invented. Official documents and legal cases were all written on bamboo slips. Every day, Cai Lun had to review hundreds of jin (a Chinese unit of weight) of these slips, which exhausted him completely. From his own hardship, he thought of the suffering of many others; from their collective hardship, he considered the interests of the nation. Thus, he set himself a mission: to create a new writing material that was lightweight, inexpensive, and easy to preserve.
It was easy to say, but harder than climbing to heaven to actually do. This was something completely unprecedented—where should he even begin? He racked his brain but found no clue. One day, he saw an old man peeling birch bark. The inner layers of thin bark were smooth and light. Cai Lun picked up a few pieces, examined them closely, and the more he looked, the more he felt they were excellent for writing. So he took the birch bark home, ground ink, picked up his brush, and wrote several large characters on them. A few days later, as the bark dried, its surface became wrinkled, like the forehead of a seventy- or eighty-year-old, and some of the characters became distorted. Angry, he threw the bark into the firewood pile.
Yet he did not give up, continuing his search for a suitable writing material. How much effort and how many miles he traveled for this matter, no one could say. Only his good friend Zhang Zhi noticed some strange changes: Cai Lun’s belt grew looser, his words became fewer, he rarely chatted idly, and was always deep in thought. When Zhang Zhi asked him, Cai Lun just smiled and said nothing.
That spring, Zhang Zhi returned home to celebrate his father’s seventieth birthday, and Cai Lun went with him. Zhang Zhi’s home was in Baishui’s Huaigou River, a place with poor transportation and difficult mountain paths. Cai Lun, true to his loyal friendship, braved the hardship without complaint, winning the deep appreciation of Zhang’s family. After the birthday celebration, Cai Lun left his lodging and wandered alone outside the village. He came upon a pond where he saw a group of children scooping thick, pulpy sludge from the water and spreading it on broken mats to dry in the sun. Once dry, they peeled it off to play with. He asked the children what they were playing with, and they said “cotton skin.” The name was strange—Cai Lun had never heard it before. He took a piece from the children, looked at it from every angle, examining it thoroughly, muttering to himself. After a long time, he asked for several more pieces and hurried back to his lodging. There, he quickly ground ink and dipped his brush, writing large characters rapidly on the cotton skin. As he wrote, suddenly he burst out laughing: “I found it! I found it!” The guards were startled, thinking Minister Cai must have fallen ill, and rushed over to ask what was wrong. Only then did they learn that Cai Lun was overjoyed at having found the perfect writing material. Just as they relaxed, they saw Minister Cai rush back outside, heading straight for the children’s pond. Cai Lun stopped and carefully examined the pulpy substance in the water. After a long time, still puzzled, he asked the villagers. They explained that the pond was originally a stagnant pool used for watering cattle. Later, someone threw in leftover rotten cotton from carding, and people, finding it dirty, stopped using it for cattle. Eventually, everyone started dumping rags, old shoes, stinky socks, rope ends, and scraps of leather into it. Over time, the water turned into a glue-like sludge. Children scooped it out, dried it, and played with it, but adults didn’t know what to call it. After hearing this, Cai Lun secretly made up his mind. He ordered his guards to gather all the pulp from the pond, dry it into the thinnest possible sheets, cut them into squares, stack them up, and bring them back to his residence.
The next day, he reported to the emperor that he had found the best writing material and presented the sheets for testing. After trying them, the emperor praised Cai Lun highly and encouraged him to continue developing the material.
Following the villagers’ description, Cai Lun placed cotton fabrics into a pond he had dug himself and soaked them in water. For some reason, the fabrics wouldn’t turn into pulp for months. He grew anxious, stirring with sticks and pounding with rafters, stirring and pounding for months, until finally the fabrics turned into a paste. He dried them as before and produced several stacks of thin cotton-skin sheets. To commemorate this discovery in Zhang Zhi’s hometown, Cai Lun named these sheets “paper” (zhi), calling each sheet “one sheet” (yi zhang). From then on, the world had the name “paper.”
However, the paper from the first trial was very coarse and not soft or smooth enough. This troubled Cai Lun deeply. So he submitted a memorial to the emperor requesting resignation to focus entirely on papermaking. The emperor refused. Cai Lun submitted another memorial, arguing that serving as an official could only benefit one generation of rulers and people, but inventing paper could benefit hundreds of generations. He firmly requested the emperor’s approval. The emperor, unwilling to lose such a loyal servant, still refused. Cai Lun submitted a third memorial, stating that after successfully inventing paper, he would return to court to continue serving the emperor. Seeing Cai Lun’s determination, the emperor tearfully approved his request.
After resigning, Cai Lun immediately went to Baishui’s Huaigou River, hired several assistants, and worked day and night on papermaking. The paper he produced indeed became better and better. Cai Lun’s fame grew louder and louder. Buyers came in a constant stream, and despite the team’s relentless efforts, they couldn’t meet the demand. Seeing this, Cai Lun sent his assistants out to each establish paper mills and train apprentices, enabling more people to master the technique.
Later, the emperor summoned Cai Lun back to court for reappointment, but Cai Lun again submitted a memorial declining. With no choice, the emperor allowed him to remain permanently among the people, making paper. Eventually, Cai Lun lived out his full lifespan and died in Huaigou River. The villagers held a very grand funeral for him, built a temple in his honor, and erected a stone tablet. Later, no one knows how, the tablet was moved to the side of the road in Majia Village, and it remained there even after Liberation. To this day, no one knows who moved it away. As for the pond where he made paper, it still exists in Huaigou River.
Some people even say that Cai Lun was summoned by the Jade Emperor to the heavenly palace, where he established a huge paper mill, becoming immensely famous. Fearing that Cai Lun’s reputation would overshadow his own, the Jade Emperor, centuries later, demoted him to the mortal world in the West to make paper there. That is why papermaking in the West emerged hundreds of years later than in China.