The emperor wanted the sound of tomorrow.  Mintian de sheng yin. 明天的声音,  The emperor represented China and wanted to show the band of the future the ugliness of the past.  Then, clarity of tomorrow's sound (which is the desire for a better future, as represented by the sound of the song "From Yesterday") could be heard.  So the message is quite simple.  The emperor showed these things to the four band members. 1) Punishments of the childless concubines.  The ugly evil from the past speaks volumes about yesterday's injustice.  The royal family expends women of the middle kingdom and these women of the emperor's harem could be executed fairly unreasonably if they dissatisfy in some way.  2) The elevation of the unexecuted concubine.  (a grotesque scene where an influential palace official is nursing from a concubine) The unexecuted concubine for lack of better words is the concubine that made it to the top.  She can bear the emperor's children in hopes of having them obtain royal and official positions in the empire.  These women are ruthless, shameless, and constitute an ugliness of the past because they are part of the problem of corruption. 3) The sinful foreign priest.  This ugliness doesn't come from the priest per se but rather the fact that the Chinese would choose to see the priest in a bizarre groteque fashion all the while trying to gain benefits of technology and scientific know how.  The music video is commenting on the fact that the ugliness goes both ways.  The hypocritical bigot who exploits others for their own gain while those that are exploited are ugly as well. 4) The death marble.  This is the marble that is placed in the mouth of those deceased and the belief is that it prolongs the freshness of the deceased body and allows it to gain safe passage into the afterlife.  The ugliness here is that it is talking about how even at death people are wary of ettiquettes and routines that have nothing to do with a prosperous and bountiful life, rather importance is placed on the things which ought to matter least, such as a deceased body.  The video is basically revealing how these things and ultimately warfare, shown in the sword fighting between the band members, are those things which have plagued mankind's past and given it the most evil thus effectively blocking people from the past from hearing the sound of the tomorrow.