Once upon some time there was a kingdom, somewhere in the middle of the world. It was a very prosperous and successful kingdom, and the King ruled it wisely.

The Kingdom was also at the cutting edge of technological advancement. After some military successes thanks to a new material called gunpowder, the King maintained a keen embrace of all new technologies.

It began as a novelty. Paper was the new new thing, the plaything of the rich. Color, movement, everything was possible with this exciting new medium. People who could do great things with paper were soon held in the highest respect, and commanded large sums of money for their creations. Tigers made from paper, huge colorful dragons that could dance and walk in the street, lanterns, banners, the uses of this bright new medium were seemingly endless.

"You can even put words and symbols on it" noted the King's First Adviser one day. They were walking in the terrace garden high up in the walls of the royal palace. Paper lanterns swayed gently in the evening breeze, swinging from bent-over stalks of bamboo like colorful great orchids. On some of the lanterns was a word, or a symbol, a few brushstrokes of black against the luminescence of the paper. "Look", continued the Advisor, “This one here is the name of the ruler of the Southern province and that one is the name of that mountain over there. Here is one with a symbol for water, and there is one for tiger, which also stands for the strength and might of your Majesty."

The King was intrigued. If you could make symbols on paper with a mere brush and some ink instead of carving them in stone or pressing them into clay, here was something that would surely change the way things were done forever. A genealogy or an account of mighty deeds in battle could be stored flat in a small space. Perhaps more could be written; more details of the battle or the renown of each person.

The King broke out of his reverie, and turned to the First Adviser.

"I want us to use paper", he said. "For everything. Find the best paper expert that silver and gold can buy, and bring him into our employ. See to it that we have everything on paper that we possibly can. Get ink and brushes, and instruct young men into the arts of writing and reading. This is going to be big."

And so the kingdom was paperized. Over the next few years, everything that could be written was written. New uses for paper were found all the time. There were still the novelty applications of lanterns, tigers, folded birds, animals large and small, dragons and buntings and chains of paper decoration. Added to these were stories and legends, maps of the kingdom, instructions in planting and crafts, paintings of gardens or waterfalls. Sayings of the wise and ancient, poems spoken for generations around fires or chanted in monasteries were now written on paper, to be hung on walls or sold in the market place for people to take home and look at. All was paper.

Meanwhile the Kingdom prospered. So much so that the Treasurer of the Kingdom had to use paper to keep track of all the King's gold and silver. The Army Chief of Staff kept detailed records of the military, the available men of fighting age in each village, what weapons were available and where.

Paper was used to keep track of the cargoes and caravans that were constantly entering and leaving the Kingdom on their way East and West, along the new, neatly paved roads. Roads made possible by the abundance of flat stones that were no longer needed for keeping records. From close up, you could sometimes see writing carved in to the road. Merchants kept paper tallies of silks and spices, skins, ivory, salt or beads, precious metals and stones. All could be committed to paper, consignments could be agreed and valued, deals made.

The original paper expert had to train apprentices in all the arts of paper. With every new thing that was done on paper, more experts were needed. Merchants, courtiers, advisors, clerics, all had a clerk at their beck and call. Soon, paper technology came to be the most respected vocation in the land.

While the Kingdom prospered, neighboring states were less fortunate. These were lean years in much of the region, and people from nearby tribes would often gaze across in envy from overgrazed hillsides at the happy Kingdom with its irrigated terraces, neatly painted villages and smooth, paved roads.

So it happened that a border dispute arose with the Kingdom to the West, which threatened to erupt into war.

A delegation was sent from the Kingdom of the West to treat with the King about the ongoing dispute. The King received the delegation and made sure they were looked after very well, in accordance with the custom in those parts. The next day the delegation was granted an audience. First the head of the delegation stood up, and described the problems along the border, the questions that were being asked about goats, problems with water and so on. The King listened attentively, while a clerk wrote everything down that was said. It sounded to the King as though these were issues that could easily be dealt with. The delegation was polite but clear in their demands, and it was plain that they too wanted to resolve these problems to the satisfaction of all concerned.

The King listened to the delegation, and agreed to give them his answer by the morning. When they had gone he summoned the clerk.

"I want to write a reply to the Kingdom of the West. Have you got all the issues down on paper?" The clerk had.

"Good," said the King, "perhaps you can have a reply written by morning." The clerk agreed that he could. The King left him to deal with the details as it was a paper thing.

Next morning the delegation arrived at the King's audience chamber as agreed. The King turned to his clerk.

"Have you got the reply?" he asked. The clerk had. He handed the King a scroll.

The king took the scroll, and handed it to the head of the delegation. The head of the delegation took the scroll, opened it out and read it. His face darkened.

"Is this your answer?"

"Yes" said the King.

Without another word the delegation turned and left the audience chamber. They went straight to the stables, saddled their horses, and rode back to the border.

One day not long after, a messenger came running into the Royal Palace with a message from the western border. The King sent for a clerk to read the message, which was on paper in a cleft stick. He could have asked the man to deliver his verbally memorized message in the traditional way, but – he reasoned – what was the use of having the technology if you didn't use it?

Eventually the clerk arrived, out of breath from climbing large numbers of stairs to where the King was. He read the message, lips moving silently and his face creasing into a frown as he took in the details.

"Well?" said the King, "What does it say?"

"There's - huhh - a force of - hhh hhuh - troops - hhuhh - massed against the border in - hhh - the West," he said, still out of breath. The King waited until he could breathe properly and got him to read the whole thing again. It was true. The state to the West was massing on the border, in strength. There were at least ten thousand of them, according to the message. He sent for the Army Chief of staff.

The Chief of Staff arrived, pulling his breastplate straight as he came up the stairs. It was early afternoon but it looked as though his hair, in particular, had only just got up. The King described the situation to him.

The Chief of Staff listened, thought for a while and then said he could think of a plan.

"We will take five hundred of our best palace guards with us, and then call up the men of fighting age in the nearby towns and villages. This will save us having to march a large army over the mountains to the border, but we will still have a large fighting force to see them off. We can start tomorrow."

"Splendid" said the King. "How many men will we be able to muster?"

The Army chief did not know. "It's a paper thing" he said. "Those sort of details are kept in the paper records. I will send for my clerk right away, and he will tell me the details. In fact, we will take a whole team of clerks with us to the border, and they will be able to handle everything."

And so it was. The Chief of the Army set out for the border, with five hundred foot soldiers from the Palace Guard, three cavalrymen and five clerks, who were in a little mobile office pulled along by two horses at the rear of the column.

The column marched across the Kingdom, along the neatly paved roads where words of old glinted in the sun. They passed wide rice fields and wound through bright green terraced mountains. They were waved on their way at every village and town, where bright flags and paper lanterns were put up to wish them victory.

Finally they arrived at the border town. The Chief of Staff arranged for billeting of the Palace Guard, and told the clerks to come up with an Army, by sunset if possible.

At sunset the Chief of Staff came back to the clerks.

"Well, how are we doing?" he asked.

"Sir, we could raise a thousand men from this town over here”, said the chief clerk pointing at an elaborately decorated map, “and a further four hundred men from those villages across the valley".

"What! That's nowhere near enough! I thought it was clear we needed an Army of well over ten thousand."

The Chief of Staff was very disappointed. He had brought the clerks along in the firm belief that they would be able to find an army. Volunteers could have been found in the various towns and villages they had passed through on their way.

"You didn't ask us then" said the clerks. "We could have told you exactly how many men were in each town, if you'd asked."

"But it's a paper thing" said the Chief of Staff. "I rely on you people to deal with those details for me. What about weaponry, a trebuchet or something?” he continued.

There were details of these in the clerks' mobile office, where the Army Chief could view all their dimensions, carrying weights, ranges and so on. On paper.

And so it happened that the Kingdom lost the battle, the war and its place in history. The name of the Kingdom, of the King, his advisors, mighty warriors and all their great deeds were erased from history, which did not take long as they were all on paper.

On paper they should have won.