Little Kourosh, with his small but determined steps in this nascent workshop, nurtured the dream of a great revolution in his mind; a revolution that was destined to change the ancient world forever and immortalize the name of Persia in the history of wisdom and knowledge. He knew well that this was the beginning of a long and challenging path with many obstacles ahead, but his resolve was harder than any stone and more torrential than any river. Every sheet of raw paper that emerged with great effort from this workshop was not only a product of his genius but also a tangible step toward his thousand-year goal: the goal of building a civilization based on knowledge, mass literacy, and prosperity. This workshop, in its solitude and secrecy, was not just a place for paper production, but the cradle for nurturing the seeds of a brilliant future for Persia; a future in which wisdom would shine upon all like the sun.
After his fourth birthday celebration and with his father Cambyses's approval, little Kourosh immediately began designing and building his first dedicated workshop for paper production. This workshop was built in the secluded and remote gardens around Anshan, in a location hidden from public view, surrounded only by ancient trees and dense bushes, with sturdy mud walls and a roof of wood and thatch. The workshop space was meticulously planned, inspired by the principles of modern factories, so that each part of the complex papermaking process would be carried out in a separate section. This itself was the cornerstone of Kourosh's secret production line. He knew that to maintain the secrecy of this new technology and prevent its secret from being revealed, no one but himself should be aware of the entire process, and each worker should only know their own section's task.
Kourosh, using the knowledge he had gained from his experiments at the age of three and his precise observations of the surrounding nature, divided the papermaking process into several distinct and specialized sections. The first section was the collection and preparation of raw materials. The slaves assigned to this section were tasked with collecting the bark of specific trees from the Zagros, the stems of fibrous plants like flax and hemp, and even old linen and cotton rags, and chopping them into small, manageable pieces. This section was located in a corner of the workshop, away from the view of other sections, so that no one would know the main source of the raw materials and the secret of this hidden industry would be preserved.
The second section was soaking and softening the fibers. The chopped materials were transferred to large mud basins filled with water. In this section, the fibers were soaked for a long time to soften and prepare them for the next stages. Kourosh, using his chemical knowledge, had instructed his nurses to add specific amounts of wood ash, which contained alkaline substances, to the water to speed up the process of softening and breaking down the fibers, preparing them in the best possible way for fiber separation. This stage required precise monitoring of temperature and time to ensure the quality of the pulp.
The third section was pulping. The softened fibers were transferred to large stone vats. The slaves in this section, using heavy wooden mallets, would beat and press the fibers for hours until they turned into a uniform and homogeneous pulp. This work was very laborious and exhausting, requiring a great deal of physical strength, but it was the core of the process that separated the cellulose fibers from each other. Beating the fibers into a pulp was the core of the process, and Kourosh made sure that this section operated completely separately from the others, so no one would know its details.
The fourth section was sheet-making, which was the most delicate and sensitive part and required unparalleled precision and skill. In this part, the resulting pulp was diluted with plenty of water in special basins to achieve a liquid and uniform state. Then, Kourosh's trusted nurses would carefully dip special screens, woven from thin reeds or horsehair, into this liquid pulp. They would skillfully lift the screen gently out of the water so that a thin, uniform layer of fibers would form on it, and the excess water would drain through the mesh, forming a sheet of paper.
The fifth section was dewatering and drying. The wet sheets of paper formed on the screen were carefully transferred onto clean linen cloths. Then, these sheets were placed between two wooden boards and pressed to remove the excess water and make the fibers stick together. After the initial dewatering, the sheets were carefully separated from the cloths and moved to drying racks in another part of the workshop to dry completely in a dry, shaded environment, away from direct sunlight, to be safe from any damage or deformation and to ensure the final quality of the paper.
To maintain the secrecy of this new technology and prevent the disclosure of its complete formula, Kourosh had made one of his trusted childhood nurses responsible for each section of the workshop. These nurses were only aware of the process of their own section and were ignorant of the details of the preceding or succeeding stages. The slaves, too, only performed the task assigned to them, and no one was in command of the entire production process. This structure created an efficient but hidden production line that delayed the leaking of the complete formula and ensured the security of the workshop.
Finally, with relentless efforts and continuous experiments in this workshop, three distinct types of paper were obtained. The paper produced from the bark of specific trees from the Zagros was thicker, more durable, and had a rougher texture, and was used for public documents or long-term storage. The second type, obtained from the stems of fibrous plants like flax and hemp, had better quality, a smoother surface, and high strength, and was suitable for more precise writing. And the finest type of paper was produced from old linen and cotton rags, which provided the softest, smoothest, and most uniform surface for writing, and due to its superior quality, was intended for recording important documents and scientific and literary works.