42 Cai Lun

The Inventor of Paper

Cai Lun (61-121) was a eunuch in East Han Dynasty, the inventor of the technique for making paper, one of the four great inventions in ancient China. At his age of 15, Cai was chosen and forced entering the imperial palace to be a young eunuch. When grown up, he took part in the fierce court power struggle that helped him ascend the political ladder to reach a top position. (But he also died later of the struggle.) As Cai was also a talent for manufacturing handicrafts, he had concurrently took charge of a large imperial crafts workshop. He innovated in designs and skills of smelting and machinery to make a variety of advanced weapons, exquisite handicrafts, furniture and decorations.

Of course, the most important invention Cai Lun made was the technique of making paper, so, the paper had initially been called “Cai Hou (Court Official) Paper”. Cai Lun once made an inspecting tour to a private silk workshop where he saw something he was interested in: There were some silk residue remained on the sieve. He peeled carefully the silk skin off the sieve, and found it seemed something like a piece of paper. Encouraged by the finding, he began to carry out an experiment. After numerous times of tests, he finally made it. He made use of wood skin, fiber waste and leftover bits of fishing web, processed them into pieces of paper. His achievement was the first of the kind in mankind history.

After some 650 years, some Chinese soldiers became the prisoners of war captured by some Arab states. These soldiers were the workers of a paper workshop, so the Arab states began to have their paper mill. It was in 12 century, the technique of making paper finally spread into European Continent.